Disability Awareness Quotes

Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.

Presuming that a nonspeaking child has nothing to say is like presuming that an adult without a car has nowhere to go.

Disability is not something an individual overcomes. I'm still disabled. I'm still Deafblind. People with disabilities are successful when we develop alternative techniques and our communities choose inclusion.

I am disabled but I'm not my disability. Disability is just a little piece of me but it is not my whole personality

I was slightly brain damaged at birth, and I want people like me to see that they shouldn't let a disability get in the way. I want to raise awareness - I want to turn my disability into ability.

It's a sighted, hearing classroom, in a sighted, hearing school, in a sighted, hearing society. They designed this environment for people who can see and hear. In this environment, I'm disabled. They place the burden on me to step out of my world and reach into theirs

If we can't start by seeing an autistic child as inherently capable, interesting, and valuable, no amount of education or therapy we layer on top is going to matter.

God didn’t put me on this street to provide disability awareness training to everyone who happens by. In fact, no god put anyone anywhere for any reason, if you want to know.

The hyping of disabled athletes into superhuman status by Channel 4 only deepens our wounds, inflicted by continual assaults on our daily lives. It truly seems that the only acceptable disabled person is a Paralympian – and then only for a few weeks.

Behind the disability, we have a heart and a mind.

Dowd was aware that he had illustrated the president was “clearly disabled.

Sighted or blind, Deaf or hearing, each of us holds just the tiniest fraction of the world's wisdom. Admitting we don't know everything will aid us on this Trek for Knowledge.

Communities designed with just one kind of person in mind isolate those of us defying our narrow definition of personhood.

God didn’t put me on this street to provide disability awareness training to the likes of them. In fact, no god put anyone anywhere for any reason, if you want to know.

I feel a little bitter that most non-disabled people do not have this dilemma of whether they will exchange their privacy to be seen as human. I am also aware that I am not alone in this experience, and that many marginalized people are put in the position of having to prove their humanity every day.

For the rest of his life, he realized, he would be torn like this, aware of Phoebe's awkwardness, the difficulties she encountered in the world simply by being different, and ye propelled beyond all this by her direct and guileless love. By her love, yes, and, he realized...by his own new and strangely uncomplicated love for her.

My name is CRPS, or so they say But I actually go by; a few different names. I was once called causalgia, nearly 150 years ago And then I had a new name It was RSD, apparently so. I went by that name because the burn lived inside of me. Now I am called CRPS, because I have so much to say I struggle to be free. I don't have one symptom and this is where I change, I attack the home of where I live; with shooting/burning pains. Depression fills the mind of the body I belong, it starts to speak harsh to self, negativity growing strong. Then I start to annoy them; with the issues with sensitivity, You'd think the pain enough; but no, it wants to make you aware of its trembling disability. I silently make my move; but the screams are loud and clear, Because I enter your physical reality and you can't disappear. I confuse your thoughts; I contain apart of your memory, I cover your perspective, the fog makes it sometimes unbearable to see. I play with your temperature levels, I make you nervous all the time - I take away your independance and take away your pride. I stay with you by the day & I remind you by the night, I am an awful journey and you will struggle with this fight. Then there's a side to me; not many understand, I have the ability to heal and you can be my friend. Help yourself find the strength to fight me with all you have, because eventually I'll get tired of making you grow mad. It will take some time; remember I mainly live inside your brain, Curing me is hard work but I promise you, You can beat me if you feed love to my pain. Find the strength to carry on and feed the fears with light; hold on to the seat because, like I said, it's going to be a fight. But I hope to meet you, when your healthy and healed, & you will silenty say to me - I did this, I am cured is this real? That day could possibly come; closer than I want- After all I am a disease and im fighting for my spot. I won't deny from my medical angle, I am close to losing the " incurable " battle.

The addict’s reliance on the drug to reawaken her dulled feelings is no adolescent caprice. The dullness is itself a consequence of an emotional malfunction not of her making: the internal shutdown of vulnerability. From the latin word vulnerare, ‘to wound’, vulnerability is our susceptibility to be wounded. This fragility is part of our nature and cannot be escaped. The best the brain can do is to shut down conscious awareness of it when pain becomes so vast or unbearable that it threatens to overwhelm our capacity to function. The automatic repression of painful emotions is a helpless child’s prime defence mechanism and can enable the child to endure trauma that would otherwise be catastrophic. The unfortunate consequence is a wholesale dulling of emotional awareness. ‘Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression,’ wrote the American novelist Saul Bellow in The Adventures of Augie March; ‘if you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining.’ Intuitively we all know that it’s better to feel than not to feel. Beyond their energizing subjective change, emotions have crucial survival value. They orient us, interpret the world for us and offer us vital information. They tell us what is dangerous and what is benign, what threatens our existence and what will nurture our growth. Imagine how disabled we would be if we could not see or hear or taste or sense heat or cold or physical pain. Emotional shutdown is similar. Our emotions are an indispensable part of our sensory apparatus and an essential part of who we are. They make life worthwhile, exciting, challenging, beautiful and meaningful. When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion. We may even become emotional amnesiacs, not remembering ever having felt truly elated or truly sad. A nagging void opens, and we experience it as alienation, as profound as ennui, as the sense of deficient emptiness…

What prevents people from learning, even something as difficult as Pirahã, is not the subject itself—the human mind has limitless capabilities—but rather certain learning disabilities that tend to fester and grow in our minds as we get older. These include a sense of smugness and superiority whenever we encounter something alien to our ways, as well as rigid ideas about what is real or true, often indoctrinated in us by schooling or family. If we feel like we know something, our minds close off to other possibilities. We see reflections of the truth we have already assumed. Such feelings of superiority are often unconscious and stem from a fear of what is different or unknown. We are rarely aware of this, and often imagine ourselves to be paragons of impartiality.

The left and right sides of the brain also process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways.2 The left brain remembers facts, statistics, and the vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. The right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth—the way things are. Even as we enumerate a loved one’s virtues to a friend, our feelings may be more deeply stirred by how her face recalls the aunt we loved at age four.3 Under ordinary circumstances the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, or having one side cut off entirely (as sometimes happened in early brain surgery) is disabling. Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning. When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past—they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen. After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did way because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you “never listen to me.” Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and, over time, our research demonstrated why.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

... I REALISE MY DISABILITY IS A BIGGER PART OF ME THAN I ADMIT. IT’S DEFINED ME ALL MY LIFE.

There is no such thing as a disability, and we say diffability, because we know you are all different, and possess different abilities.

Each one of us is different, but one thing that is true; Each one of us is wonderfully made, and so, my dear, are you!

According to the World Health Organization, bipolar disorder is the sixth leading cause of disability in the world. I doubt Angela is aware of this statistic, but no matter.*

Intellectual Property must be accessible to facilitate full and equal enjoyment of innovation and creativity by all.

And suddenly, lying in bed, I became aware of every inch of my body and I apologised to it, quietly. I apologised for bring so ungrateful for so long. Then I thanked my arms, hands and fingers for always trying so hard. I thanked my legs and feet for holding me up all the time. I thanked my brain for working so amazingly well and conjuring up thoughts and dreams and sentences and images and crazy poems. And I thanked all my organs for working together and giving me life. It had taken four and a half billion years for me to be here. Right now. In this universe. And in that moment, I felt totally overwhelmed at being alive. There could be nothing but there was everything. I didn't want to waste a single second more worrying about trivialities. Worrying that I'd never match up to an ideal that didn't even exist. Nobody is normal. We are all different. I had to make sure that every moment I had left on this planet counted.

Three psychologists, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ken Sheldon, and David Schkade, reviewed the available evidence and realized that there are two fundamentally different kinds of externals: the conditions of your life and the voluntary activities that you undertake.33 Conditions include facts about your life that you can’t change (race, sex, age, disability) as well as things that you can (wealth, marital status, where you live). Conditions are constant over time, at least during a period in your life, and so they are the sorts of things that you are likely to adapt to. Voluntary activities, on the other hand, are the things that you choose to do, such as meditation, exercise, learning a new skill, or taking a vacation. Because such activities must be chosen, and because most of them take effort and attention, they can’t just disappear from your awareness the way conditions can. Voluntary activities, therefore, offer much greater promise for increasing happiness while avoiding adaptation effects.

I was brain-dead. So disabled, yet blissed our. This, in stark contrast with what was to come- a heightened awareness of my shortcomings, a darkness to counter the lightness of those early weeks of recovery.

...accept what you've already learned: that your disability will come and go and you'll never control it completely. Educate yourself about it, become an expert manager, and use treatment whenever you think it's necessary and without regard to your yearnings to be normal. Fight the shame that comes with being ill by sharing as much with others as you think is appropriate according to your own standards of privacy, not the culture's stigma.

Today, the public mindset is beginning to shift away from a medical model of disability towards a recognition that context and self-awareness as a learner both play a huge role in whether any given condition is disabling or not.10

You see what I am driving at. The mentally handicapped do not have a consciousness of power. Because of this perhaps their capacity for love is more immediate, lively and developed than that of other men. They cannot be men of ambition and action in society and so develop a capacity for friendship rather than for efficiency. They are indeed weak and easily influenced, because they confidently give themselves to others; they are simple certainly, but often with a very attractive simplicity. Their first reaction is often one of welcome and not of rejection or criticism. Full of trust, they commit themselves deeply. Who amongst us has not been moved when met by the warm welcome of our boys and girls, by their smiles, their confidence and their outstretched arms. Free from the bonds of conventional society, and of ambition, they are free, not with the ambitious freedom of reason, but with an interior freedom, that of friendship. Who has not been struck by the rightness of their judgments upon the goodness or evil of men, by their profound intuition on certain human truths, by the truth and simplicity of their nature which seeks not so much to appear to be, as to be. Living in a society where simplicity has been submerged by criticism and sometimes by hypocrisy, is it not comforting to find people who can be aware, who can marvel? Their open natures are made for communion and love.

As discussed earlier, humans who lack the reflective self-awareness of normal adults, such as those with particular forms of amnesia or very young children or those with certain mental disabilities, still are self-aware and still have an interest in continuing to live. There may, of course, be a difference between the self-awareness of normal adult humans and that of other animals. But even if that is the case, it does not mean that the latter have no interest in continuing to live, and it does not justify treating the latter as commodities. Singer begs the question from the outset by maintaining

I never allowed my Autism/Asperger's to have the prerogative to neither tear nor slow me down. I earned a degree in chemistry, juggle for elementary schools, play piano for seniors on Sunday mornings, and been mentoring children/teens from K-12 at Royal Rangers almost every week for six years and counting.

My pronoun is people, I'm divergent, yet invincible. I am straight, I am queer; I am civilian, I am seer. Spirit of life, I - am universal! Call me disabled or differently able, Call me collective or individual. Fleshly forms I've got plenty, All run by same love and liberty - Culture supreme is inclusion.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Beyond the obvious demands - an end to sexual violence, an end to the wage gap - feminism must be class-conscious, and aware of the limiting culture of the gender binary. It needs to recognise that disabled people aren't inherently defective, but rather that non-disabled people have failed at creating a physical world that serves all. Feminism must demand affordable, decent, secure housing, and a universal basic income. It should demand pay for full-time mothers and free childcare for working mothers. It should recognise that we live in a world in which women are constantly harangued into being lusted after, but punishes sex workers for using that situation to make a living. Feminism needs to thoroughly recognise that sexuality is fluid, and we need to dream of a world where people are not violently policed for transgressing rigid gender roles. Feminism needs to demand a world in which racist history is acknowledged and accounted for, in which reparations are distributed, in which race is completely deconstructed.

The noise from outside is now almost unbearable; neighbours in the street are waking up in their beds. Paul stirs once more. He is now out of the REM sleep stage and is in the next stage of waking up. His conscious mind is aware of the external environment and he is now awake enough to work out what the noise is: it’s a car alarm; the same one that goes off every time a strong enough wind current passes it, triggering its ultra-sensitive setting. Paul curses the car alarm for waking him up out of his slumber. For all the noise they create, he wonders if there is any point to car alarms. Thieves intentionally trip them to mask the sound of breaking glass and can disable them in seconds, and alarms go off so often these days that most people ignore them when they hear them, assuming the owner has accidentally triggered the alarm and will switch it off any second; in reality the owner is normally the last one to realise it is, in fact, their car alarm that is going off annoying everyone, so what is really the point of them?

As discussed earlier, humans who lack the reflective self-awareness of normal adults, such as those with particular forms of amnesia or very young children or those with certain mental disabilities, still are self-aware and still have an interest in continuing to live. There may, of course, be a difference between the self-awareness of normal adult humans and that of other animals. But even if that is the case, it does not mean that the latter have no interest in continuing to live, and it does not justify treating the latter as commodities.

Amber was painfully aware of the mismatch between her politics and her desires. She was an intersectional feminist, an advocate for people with disabilities, and a wholehearted ally of the LGBT community in all its glorious diversity. As a straight, cisgender, able-bodied, neurotypical, first-world, middle-class white woman, she struggled to maintain a constant awareness of her privilege, and to avoid using it to silence or ignore the voices of those without the same unearned advantages, who had more of a right to speak on many, many subjects than she did. It went without saying that she was a passionate opponent of capitalism, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape culture, bullying, and microaggression in all its forms. But when it came to boys, for some reason, she only ever liked jocks. It kind of sucked ... And of course they used her like a disposable object, without regret or apology, because that’s what privilege is—the license to treat other people like shit while still getting to believe that you’re a good person.

Having Asperger’s is like having an enhancer plugged into an outlet in our brains. Asperger’s is an accelerator, amplifying the perceptions that we have on the world and the ambiance around us. Like going to the store and buying a device to plug in or install on something in order to make it run faster, Asperger’s will deepen everything’s significance, causing us to take things to a more intense level. Those of us with Asperger’s need to take our time on certain things, which causes us difficulty in accomplishing simple tasks. We learn to diligently persevere and be more prudent and careful. "Juggling the Issues: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome is an anthology explaining these topics through the eyes of someone with Asperger’s. This is more than a researcher giving an outline of what we face and what we can do. Instead, this is one of those books told by a person who has Asperger’s and has dealt with certain difficulties in order to experience achievements over the past twenty years. I have personally overcome and am still overcoming a lot of the trials that come with having Asperger’s.

The addict’s reliance on the drug to reawaken her dulled feelings is no adolescent caprice. The dullness is itself a consequence of an emotional malfunction not of her making: the internal shutdown of vulnerability. From the Latin word vulnerare, “to wound,” vulnerability is our susceptibility to be wounded. This fragility is part of our nature and cannot be escaped. The best the brain can do is to shut down conscious awareness of it when pain becomes so vast or unbearable that it threatens to overwhelm our capacity to function. The automatic repression of painful emotion is a helpless child’s prime defence mechanism and can enable the child to endure trauma that would otherwise be catastrophic. The unfortunate consequence is a wholesale dulling of emotional awareness. “Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression,” wrote the American novelist Saul Bellow in The Adventures of Augie March; “if you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining.” Intuitively, we all know that it’s better to feel than not to feel. Beyond their energizing subjective charge, emotions have crucial survival value. They orient us, interpret the world for us and offer us vital information. They tell us what is dangerous and what is benign, what threatens our existence and what will nurture our growth. Imagine how disabled we would be if we could not see or hear or taste or sense heat or cold or physical pain. Emotional shutdown is similar. Our emotions are an indispensable part of our sensory apparatus and an essential part of who we are. They make life worthwhile, exciting, challenging, beautiful and meaningful. When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion. We may even become emotional amnesiacs, not remembering ever having felt truly elated or truly sad. A nagging void opens, and we experience it as alienation, as profound ennui, as the sense of deficient emptiness described above. The wondrous power of a drug is to offer the addict protection from pain while at the same time enabling her to engage the world with excitement and meaning. “It’s not that my senses are dulled — no, they open, expanded,” explained a young woman whose substances of choice are cocaine and marijuana. “But the anxiety is removed, and the nagging guilt and — yeah!” The drug restores to the addict the childhood vivacity she suppressed long ago.

PATTERNS OF THE “SHY” What else is common among people who identify themselves as “shy?” Below are the results of a survey that was administered to 150 of my program’s participants. The results of this informal survey reveal certain facts and attitudes common among the socially anxious. Let me point out that these are the subjective answers of the clients themselves—not the professional opinions of the therapists. The average length of time in the program for all who responded was eight months. The average age was twenty-eight. (Some of the answers are based on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest.) -Most clients considered shyness to be a serious problem at some point in their lives. Almost everyone rated the seriousness of their problem at level 5, which makes sense, considering that all who responded were seeking help for their problem. -60 percent of the respondents said that “shyness” first became enough of a problem that it held them back from things they wanted during adolescence; 35 percent reported the problem began in childhood; and 5 percent said not until adulthood. This answer reveals when clients were first aware of social anxiety as an inhibiting force. -The respondents perceived the average degree of “sociability” of their parents was a 2.7, which translates to “fair”; 60 percent of the respondents reported that no other member of the family had a problem with “shyness”; and 40 percent said there was at least one other family member who had a problem with “shyness.” -50 percent were aware of rejection by their peers during childhood. -66 percent had physical symptoms of discomfort during social interaction that they believed were related to social anxiety. -55 percent reported that they had experienced panic attacks. -85 percent do not use any medication for anxiety; 15 percent do. -90 percent said they avoid opportunities to meet new people; 75 percent acknowledged that they often stay home because of social fears, rather than going out. -80 percent identified feelings of depression that they connected to social fears. -70 percent said they had difficulty with social skills. -75 percent felt that before they started the program it was impossible to control their social fears; 80 percent said they now believed it was possible to control their fears. -50 percent said they believed they might have a learning disability. -70 percent felt that they were “too dependent on their parents”; 75 percent felt their parents were overprotective; 50 percent reported that they would not have sought professional help if not for their parents’ urging. -10 percent of respondents were the only child in their families; 40 percent had one sibling; 30 percent had two siblings; 10 percent had three; and 10 percent had four or more. Experts can play many games with statistics. Of importance here are the general attitudes and patterns of a population of socially anxious individuals who were in a therapy program designed to combat their problem. Of primary significance is the high percentage of people who first thought that “shyness” was uncontrollable, but then later changed their minds, once they realized that anxiety is a habit that can be broken—without medication. Also significant is that 50 percent of the participants recognized that their parents were the catalyst for their seeking help. Consider these statistics and think about where you fit into them. Do you identify with this profile? Look back on it in the coming months and examine the ways in which your sociability changes. Give yourself credit for successful breakthroughs, and keep in mind that you are not alone!

The Question of How? When you are writing goals, or even thinking about achieving big things in life, the question that will come to your mind is “how?” You may think, “I don’t have enough education or money, and my health isn’t good enough. How will I ever be able to achieve these goals?” These thoughts alone can discourage you from going any further. However, take this simple example: Imagine you are standing in front of your refrigerator and would like to open the door. What do you do? Do you think about how to do it? Do you worry about whether or not your muscles will respond and help you open the door? Unless you, unfortunately, have a physical disability, you are able to open the refrigerator door, having full faith that you can do it. Just as you may not be aware of the complexities of the way your body works to allow you to you to open that refrigerator door without thought, so the Universe has provided you with everything in abundance, and a continuous flow of prosperity can come your way. Only when you accept that it is possible, you can and will live the life that you dream about.

The answers are perhaps as varied as the questions one asks, but a common theme that comes through in discussions with caregivers on the front lines and those who think a great deal about patient safety, is our failure to change our culture. What we have not done, they say, is create a “culture of safety,” as has been done so impressively in other industries, such as commercial aviation, nuclear power and chemical manufacturing. These “high-reliability organizations” are intrinsically hazardous enterprises that have succeeded in becoming (amazingly!) safe. Worse, the culture of health care is not only unsafe, it is incredibly dysfunctional. Though the culture of each health care organization is unique, they all suffer many of the same disabilities that have, so far, effectively stymied progress: An authoritarian structure that devalues many workers, lack of a sense of personal accountability, autonomous functioning and major barriers to effective communication. What is a culture of safety? Pretty much the opposite! Books have been written on the subject, and every expert has his or her own specific definition. But an underlying theme, a common denominator, is teamwork, founded on an open, supportive, mutually reinforcing, dedicated relationship among all participants. Much more is required, of course: Sensitivity to hazard, sense of personal responsibility, attitudes of awareness and risk, sense of personal responsibility and more. But those attitudes, that type of teamwork and those types of relationships are rarely found in health care organizations.

Was the process of institutionalization both so powerful and subtle, that I could be aware of it and yet be unable to resist?

Social Justice approaches that focus solely on group identity and neglect individuality and universality are doomed to fail for the simple reasons that people are individuals and share a common human nature. Identity politics is not a path to empowerment. There is no “unique voice of color” or of women or of trans, gay, disabled, or fat people. Even a relatively small random sample drawn from any of those groups will reveal widely varying individual views. This does not negate the likelihood that prejudice still exists and that the people who experience it are the most likely to be aware of it. We still need to “listen and consider,” but we need to listen to and consider a variety of experiences and views from members of oppressed groups, not just a single one that has been arbitrarily labeled “authentic” because it represents the view essentialized by Theory.

It was an awareness of the frauds that Disability and Workers Compensation have become that turned me into a civil rights advocate for the disabled.

Very high altitude workers should be aware that if they become disabled by Mauna Kea Sickness (MKS), it is highly unlikely they will get government disability payments.

God didn’t put me on this street to provide disability awareness training to the likes of them. In fact, no god put anyone anywhere for any reason, if you want to know.

Your limitations can become limitless if you use your mind and body to overcome a particular challenge.

The instrumental defence of speciesism invokes the widely used ‘slippery slope’ argument. The claim is that a first step in a certain direction will put us on a slippery slope, and we shall not be able to stop sliding into a moral abyss. In the present context, the argument is used to suggest that we need a clear line to divide those beings we can experiment on, or fatten for dinner, from those we cannot. The species boundary makes a nice sharp dividing line, whereas levels of self-awareness, autonomy or sentience do not. Once we allow that any human being, no matter how profoundly intellectually disabled, has no higher moral status than an animal, the argument goes, we have begun to slide down a slope, the next level of which is denying rights to social misfits, and the bottom of which is classifying anyone we do not like as sub-human and eliminating them.

Anton’s syndrome—a deficit of self-awareness in which a person is oblivious to a physical disability but otherwise doing fairly well cognitively. It’s known to be caused by damage to the occipital lobe of the brain. Yet I’ve come to believe that even when our brains are functioning normally, we’re all vulnerable to a version of Anton’s syndrome.

I have heard politicians like John Major in the U.K. and his counterparts in the U.S. say that what we need to do to solve the problem of crime and violence is to teach criminals to learn the different between right and wrong. In other words, we need to teach them to recognize the difference between justice and injustice, and to pursue the former and eschew the latter. But what the politicians who mouth these sentiments do not realize is that the violent criminals are perfectly aware of the difference between right and wrong. They realize that they have been victims of injustice (most of all, from those who preach to them most loudly about it), and they commit their crimes in order to achieve some measure of justice, by taking something back from a society that has subjected them to a degree of deprivation to which it does not subject others. For example, how can we, as a society, say that we have something to teach about justice, when we permit the perpetuation of an economic system in which some people inherit millions of pounds while most people inherit nothing? How can we speak of equality of opportunity under those conditions? Violent criminals are not violent because they are dumb, out of touch with reality, or unable to recognize hypocrisy, dishonesty, and injustice when they see it. They are violent precisely because they are aware of the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and injustice that surrounds them and of which they have been the victims. That does not mean that they respond to those conditions in a rational or just way, or that we should tolerate and permit their violence — which affects their fellow victims much more often than it does their oppressors. But it does mean that we cannot expect to stop the kind of violence that we call crime until we stop the kind of violence that I have called structural in "Structural Violence" (1999). By this I mean the deaths and disabilities that are caused by the economic structure of our society, its division into rich and poor. Structural violence is not only the main form of violence, in the sense that poverty kills far more people (almost all of them very poor) than all the behavioral violence put together, it is also the main cause of violent behavior. Eliminating structural violence means eliminating relative poverty.

People with disabilities should not be considered unadvataged because they can high self esteem as others to fulfill their potential. People should be aware that a disability is something that some people can be born with and it is not a choice for them. Therefore, they should be treated with respect and should not be discriminated because this kind of behavior can socially isolate them from being part of the rest of their community.

While some siblings accept, and even embrace, their destiny as members of the 'team,' others are (mostly privately) outraged, having experienced the obverse of the soothing stereotype in their own families. A graphic designer whose autistic brother tried to strangle her when they were children, and who struggled for years to get her parents to recognize the danger he presented, is acutely aware of the discrepancy between the illusion and the reality of damaged families: I'm trying to eradicate the Hallmark Hall of Fame Special myth - 'how I learned the meaning of life by having a disabled sibling.' The cover of Newsweek on autism had a beautiful blond good boy. People just want to look at the pretty kids on Jerry Lewis, the sanitized version, not the ugly cases like my brother. The severely disabled aren't telegenic.

People with disabilities should not be considered as unadvataged because they can have high self esteem as others to fulfill their potential. People should be aware that a disability is something that some people can be born with and it is not a choice for them. Therefore, they should be treated with respect and should not be discriminated because this kind of behavior can socially isolate them from being part of the rest of their community.

On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor. Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port. ‎Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.

Hospice deploys nurses, doctors, chaplains, and social workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible lives right now—much as nursing home reformers deploy staff to help people with severe disabilities. In terminal illness that means focusing on objectives like freedom from pain and discomfort, or maintaining mental awareness for as long as feasible, or getting out with family once in a while—

What Does Poor Posture Look Like? • Stiff & rigid • Slumping • Slouching • Hunched over • Rounded shoulders • Overly arched back • Stumbling • Head forward In sensitivity, we must be aware that many people suffer from poor posture because of physical disability, injury, health issues, heredity, obesity, or musculoskeletal construction. These descriptions are not meant to offend or judge people who are unable to change their posture.

The answer to terrorism is to live in yellow. It’s that healthy awareness, not being freaked out and having a disabling sense of fear but a healthy awareness of what’s around us and then sharing concerns, observations with each other so we can check them out.

Claire’s Voice encourages readers to have hope, embrace disabilities, empathize with others, deal with trauma and make a difference. Providing hope is the heart of this story. Creating awareness makes change possible to move forward.

A political/relational model of disability, on the other hand, makes room for more activist responses, seeing “disability” as a potential site for collective reimagining. Under this kind of framework, “disability awareness” simulations can be reframed to focus less on the individual experience of disability—or imagined experience of disability—and more on the political experience of disablement. For example, rather than placing nondisabled students in wheelchairs, the Santa Barbara-based organization People in Search of Safe and Accessible Restrooms (PISSAR) places them in bathrooms, armed with measuring tapes and clipboards, to track the failures and omissions of the built environment. As my fellow restroom revolutionaries explain in our manifesto, “This switch in focus from the inability of the body to the inaccessibility of the space makes room for activism and change in ways that ‘awareness exercises’ may not.” In creating and disseminating a “restroom checklist,” PISSAR imagines a future of disability activism, one with disability rights activists demanding accessible spaces; contrast that approach with the simulation exercises, in which “awareness” is the future goal, rather than structural or systemic change.

We need to be much more vigilant and aware of the risks inherent in touting the importance of family involvement and family care. Too easily, those calls can be reinterpreted to mean that the only care worth supporting is that provided by relatives, inadvertently demonizing and pathologizing the use of paid attendants. This is not to say that family members who provide attendant care for their disabled relatives should not themselves be compensated for their work; indeed, I support consumer-directed attendant services that allow disabled people to hire their own attendants, including family members. But, as Laura Hershey explains, seeing attendant care as something best provided by a family member too easily perpetuates the idea that disability is a private problem concerning the family that has no place in the public sphere. This attitude, in turn, leads to the continued devaluation of caregiving; abysmal wages and working conditions are justified on the basis that family members—almost always women—would be doing this work anyway and therefore any compensation, no matter how meager, is sufficient.

While implicit bias is always at play because all humans have bias, inequity can occur simply through homogeneity; if I am not aware of the barriers you face, then I won’t see them, much less be motivated to remove them. Nor will I be motivated to remove the barriers if they provide an advantage to which I feel entitled. All progress we have made in the realm of civil rights has been accomplished through identity politics: women’s suffrage, the American with Disabilities Act, Title 9, federal recognition of same-sex marriage. A key issue in the 2016 presidential election was the white working class. These are all manifestations of identity politics.

Illness is not the problem. You are the problem — as long as the egoic mind is in control. When you are ill or disabled, do not feel that you have failed in some way, do not feel guilty. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not blame yourself either. All that is resistance. If you have a major illness, use it for enlightenment. Anything “bad” that happens in your life — use it for enlightenment. Withdraw time from the illness. Do not give it any past or future. Let it force you into intense present-moment awareness — and see what happens. Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.

Marin hesitated. He was not disposed to pursue this discussion, which he regarded as fruitless. But he was recalling the period when he was first adjusting to Trask’s body. The dreamlike memories—that scene where what was evidently a dying man was asking for help. The incident could well be a clue to the mystery of Trask’s past associations. He described the scene to Trask briefly and said, “I gathered that he could have the help only if he could tell why he was ill. What happened to him?” Trask said, “One of my early experiments in self-sufficiency.” “What did the experiment prove?” The other man was scowling. “This is a lame-duck world, David. A large percentage of people are so deeply involved in the need for someone to tell them what to do, think, feel and believe that they will die rather than become aware of their own responsibility for illness, failure and other disabilities. We’ve got to change that. We’ve got to set up a system where people are interdependent, and where an authority on some subject is merely a source of information for his equals.” “This man died?” “No.” Trask shrugged. “After he fell into a coma, we fulfilled our role of father or mother substitute and saved him.

Disabilities mean nothing if you have a loving parent Parent of a child with a disability must have love Love endures and gives love and support Support your child and be thankful for every second Second of praying means a lot to God to parents Parents Exist

What do I mean by “locked in time”? I mean, first of all, that we characteristically view mobile phenomena in immobile terms. We see processes like love and education as established circumstances rather than as complex temporal organisms whose lives depend on regular nourishment and renewal. Conversely, we tend to accept our own fear, weakness and ignorance as chronic disabilities rather than facing them, as we should, with the awareness that they are temporary and surmountable. Like still cameras, our minds consistently convert motion into stasis. In our language about time we resort to rocklike absolutisms – creation, completion, means, end, permanence, annihilation – terms whose static and extreme implications make them poor approximations of history and experience… We have little use at all for that most subtle and suggestive of words, renewal.

You learn to read people by the way they act ... When people shy away from Doug, I think, Oh, they have so much to learn. You see, the disabled person has no problem interacting with them. They're the ones with the problem.

Zengie felt a presence as if he was being watched. He couldn’t shake the feeling of fear from his shoulders. Were the henchmen catching up to him, or was a hungry lion waiting to pounce on him? Could it be one of those animal-changing spirits? Zengie had no idea what that feeling meant.

Destiny plays a great role in life. No one can control what happens. Everything happens for a reason, but sometimes, we don’t know why. Sometimes nature has a cruel twist, or it is full of joy.

When Zengie finally spoke, he just stared at his mother and said, “Why did the henchmen take me away from you? Why did they blame me for all the bad luck?” Mallee thought carefully about how she was going to tell him. She wasn’t sure how to say it. “Zengie, it’s because you are different from the other children,” she whispered.

Did it occur to this pastor that I am not calling him out, but calling him in to a more inclusive way, one that centers the least of these like Jesus? Did he consider that my engagement with his words isn't an act of cancellation or condemnation, but one of conviction? Did he stop to consider that perhaps I am not oversensitive, but he is under-aware of perspectives other than his own? Did he wonder whether I might not be the only one harmed by casually using disability as a metaphor?

The body, at the centre of a web of power relations, is measured and categorized in many different ways (gender, race, mental health, disability, age, appearance, etc.), of which sexuality is one category. We are painfully aware of the extent to which we are considered ‘normal’ on each strand of this web and we self-monitor in relation to this, for example when we read our friends’ posts on social media.

During the time I went through the corporate government disability system, I was aware that I had a strange sickness that would eventually kill me if not properly diagnosed and treated.

We may also struggle with what could be considered justifiable fears. We have fears of loss, pain, disability, and death. These can be transformed only by the human being who has come to know what it means to „die before you die“. In the discipline of transformation, this expression means coming to know our spiritual home, our eternal Self. It is not a metaphor but an accurate description of a psycho-spiritual truth. Many of those who have lived through the experience of a clinical death and have returned to life know that death is not something to fear and that life is an immeasurable gift. These people return to their lives with less fear because they have experienced their true metaphysical home. At the same time they have known that this physical body is important as a means of contact with their fellow human beings. Against the backdrop of eternity this transient human life has acquired a new beauty. To die before death is to detach from our physical body, our thinking, and our emotions at will, as a conscious choice. This is the aim of certain forms of spiritual training. Through control of the breath, fasting, and sustained awareness it becomes possible to separate from our coarser bodies – physical, emotional, mental – and to mount the steed of pure consciousness. When consciousness is separated from the conditioned intellect and desire, it makes direct contact with the electromagnetic field of Love. The soul comes to know a different relationship to all the beings within this electromagnetic field. When we are connected with this Love, we are free of fear and of the domination of the lower self and the thoughts it generates. As Rumi said: „Thinking is powerless in the expression of love.“ Love is reckless and does not count the cost; it expresses itself through courage and self-sacrifice. Often our fear is a lack of love. To be free of fear we must love very much. (p. 159)

The role of educational institutions in promoting accessibility extends beyond education of students with disabilities; it creates a ripple effect of awareness and understanding of accessibility among the general public.

Discussion Questions 1. An institution for people with disabilities, the Willowbrook State School opened in 1947 on Staten Island, New York, and remained in operation until 1987. Despite having a maximum capacity of 4,000 people, by 1965 it housed over 6,000 intellectually and physically disabled children and adults, becoming the largest state-run mental institution of its kind in the United States. Due to staff and money shortages, there was only one nurse per ward, one or two attendants per 35 to 125 residents, and more than 200 residents living in houses built for fewer than 100. An estimated 12,000 residents died at Willowbrook from 1950 to 1980, approximately 400 a year, due to neglect, violence, lack of nutrition, and medical mismanagement or experimentation. What was your awareness of Willowbrook State School before reading The Lost Girls of

By prioritizing accessibility, educational institutions can do more than facilitating students with disabilities in achieving their academic and career goals; they can also play a role in spreading awareness and culture among all students.

Educational Institutions that build and maintain an accessible environment do more than enable persons with disabilities to thrive academically and professionally; they also instill a sense of responsibility and awareness about accessibility in their entire community.

God didn’t put me on this street to provide disability awareness training to the likes of them. In fact, no god put anyone anywhere for any reason, if you want to know. But they don’t want to know. They think they know everything there is to know, just by looking at me.

Control is the product of your disabled will. It is an attempt to will what cannot be willed. You cannot change another person. You cannot fix your parents, spouse, lover or children. You cannot control their lives or their pain.

Despite his disability he is a man I already admire, am connected with; there’s nothing wrong with his mind or his desire... I see his disability but feel his wholeness more.

Disability is both apparent and nonapparent. Disability is pain, struggle, brilliance, abundance, and joy. Disability is sociopo- litical, cultural, and biological. Being visible and claiming a disabled identity brings risks as much as it brings pride. The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist. My fight has been for accommodation, the world to me and me to the world. -Harriet McBryde Johnson Taking up space as a disabled person is always revolutionary. -Sandy Ho There is so much that able-bodied people could learn from the wisdom that often comes with dis- ability. But space needs to be made. Hands need to be reached out. People need to be lifted up. -A. H. Reaume Disability justice exists every place two disabled people meet-at a kitchen table, on heating pads in bed talking to our loves. -Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In short, for theoretical cognition, all truth is to be found in the external world, and for practical cognition, no truth is to be found in the external world. This stance of the will, in which the ends of the good reside within the will alone, and external actuality is, in-itself, empty of all worth of the good will, leaving 'two worlds in opposition'. What the unity of theoretical and practical standpoints allows is a reciprocity and mutual tempering of each such that cognition can be brought in relation to the external world while avoiding the extreme vices of both stances: theoretical cognition's meta-awareness of its own activity as practical prevents the self-conception in which all content of truth is found in the givenness of the object; practical cognition's reunification with theoretical cognition prevents the self-conception in which the will alone is the source of all goodness and worth. Theoretical cognition reminds the will that the contingency of the world can be made to conform with cognition's form of activity, that although it is true that there are ineliminable contingencies, this truth is something that cognition can grasp, and most importantly, it is not a fact that disables the activity of cognition in principle. Since theoretical cognition can find truth of self-certainty in the given contingency of the world - most notably, the instinct of reason finds itself in the form of inner purposiveness as such - nothing in principle prevents the will from finding the truth of self-certainty amid practical contingency, except for its faulty conception of itself. Far from a worthless nullity, the actuality confronting the will is already permeated by rational ends, 'an objective world whose inner ground and actual subsistence is the Concept'. That is, the external actuality confronting the will is always already a world shaped by the rationally realized ends of the will itself - ultimately, the world of objective spirit, and more directly, the world of ethical life. The insistence of the will that the good is a mere ought that cannot be realized is thus a misconception of both itself and its world - a misconception that theoretical cognition can help to correct. The unity of theoretical and practical cognition brings forth the absolute Idea, which, once more, returns us to the problem of life.

The Course teaches that there are only two experiences of consciousness, Love and fear. Love reflects God and is an experience of abundance, wholeness, happiness, peace, and security. In the Course this is called Christ or Holy Spirit. Any other experience is fear, or ego, and is false because it seems to set you apart from God. For the purposes of this book, I use ego-consciousness to refer to the state of fear and ego for its manifestation in an individual mind. I use the term Spirit-consciousness for the state that occurs when ego no longer blocks one’s awareness that God is their Source and Spirit (Christ) is their Identity. Because ego is defined in different ways in different disciplines, I clarify here how I use the term as I understand it from the Course. As part of the material world, a body and personality—person in this book, but just body in the Course—are neutral expressions of consciousness, like a flower or a table or a cat; whether beautiful or ugly, strong or weak, healthy or disabled or disordered. While a person is your undeniable experience of consciousness, it is not your true identity. That is Christ (Spirit). When you identify with a person, it seems to set you apart from God, and you identify with fear (lack, limitation) and that is ego. In ego, you constantly define and defend your person to set yourself apart to make yourself special, which you think will make you feel whole—or at least lack less. You attack others for not appreciating your specialness or for demanding that you appreciate theirs over your own. And you project onto others the guilt you feel for seeming to make yourself not as God created you.

Cedar Capital Group Tokyo Review of Stats Shows Decrease in Mortality Rate in Construction Sites Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan construction industry is one of the riskiest industries to work with. Not only do they have to deal with falling debris but workers also have to be aware of faulty wirings, defective equipment and weather warnings. Workers even sometimes have to lose their lives in the midst of construction. These circumstances are inevitable and precautions were already implemented even at the start of training. Yet, it cannot be denied that construction is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world today. Everywhere we go, we see buildings being built and establishments being constructed. We see new structures in developed nations. New York, America, Tokyo, Japan, Beijing, China and Seoul, South Korea are some of the leading cities which feature new construction projects almost everyday. Singapore is also not left behind. Considered as one of the most flourishing countries in the world, the little island-city has prided itself with new infrastructure projects and promise a thousand more to come. It came no surprise that the country’s journey towards urbanization was held liable for the deaths of hundreds of construction workers in the previous years. Just recently, though, Singapore has declared their concern on the number of fatalities there are in a construction project. If not of deaths, accidents resulting to fractures and minor and major injuries are also experienced in other neighboring countries. Cedar Capital Group in Tokyo Japan, one the distributor of heavy capital equipment in the country, reports to have dozens of death in the last 4 years of their operation. This, as they claim, is one of the reasons why there is a large scarcity in job application related to construction. Many companies are also faced with numerous complaints because of these deaths and injuries. According to further review, approximately one-quarter of the deaths result from exposure to hazardous substances which cause such disabling illnesses as cancer and cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous-system disorders. Analysts even warn that work-related diseases are expected to double by the year 2020 and that if improvements are not implemented now, exposures today will kill people by the year 2020. Surprisingly, though, while people are being troubled with the number of casualties in the construction sector, recent studies and statistics show fewer deaths in construction sector in the first half of the year. Specifically in Singapore, Manpower Ministry has announced only 8 death reports compared to the 17 deaths in 2014. Although this is not a reason to celebrate since there are still fatalities, Singapore’s Contractual Association stated that this is an improvement as it shows the effectiveness of the recent awareness programs and training seminars conducted across the island-city. The country aims to clear all fatalities for the next succeeding years.

The B.’s were well aware that the protocols and conventions of nonautistic society were opaque to them, and that they were required to “ape human behavior” at work, as Mr. B. put it, to avoid alarming their professional colleagues. But Sacks reported that they had come to feel that their autism, “while it may be seen as a medical condition, and pathologized as a syndrome, must also be seen as a whole mode of being, a deeply different mode or identity, one that needs to be conscious (and proud) of itself.” At home with other members of their tribe, in an environment designed for their comfort, they didn’t feel disabled; they just felt different from their neighbors.

They argued that food and medical care are not everyone’s birthright but are properly earned by doing productive labor. They described disabled people as Lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”), calling them “useless eaters” and “human ballast” who consume precious resources without repaying their debt to society. Ending the lives of these “empty human husks”—who were not even aware of the misery that they inflicted on others—was not only a socially beneficial act, Hoche and Binder claimed, it was the most compassionate thing that could be done under the circumstances.

Matthew 8:26, NLT Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. Mark 4:39-40, NLT When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Setting the Scene Both Mark and Luke record the sequence of Jesus’ response to the impassioned plea of the disciples as miracle first, comment after. Matthew tells us Jesus questioned their faith and then spoke to the wind and waves. The order is probably not significant, since Jesus may have spoken with the men before and after the miracle. But Matthew, who was present in the boat, seems to capture more vividly the style Jesus usually used with his disciples. The thinking and the challenge came first, followed by the miracle. As we’ve already seen in the incident with the lame man lowered through the roof, Jesus said what needed to be said and then confirmed his words with a miracle (see Mark 2:1-12). Jesus asked a question and then made a statement: “Why are you afraid?” and “You have so little faith!” Fears deserve to be questioned. We ought to ask ourselves regularly, “Why am I afraid?” If we never doubt our fears, they will control us. As we have already learned this week, some fears are legitimate, and some fears are not. Sometimes we don’t need to be afraid. When we are with Jesus, we don’t have to fear. When fear is in control, faith is stifled. Acting fearfully is not acting faithfully. Jesus’ question wasn’t directed toward the disciples’ feelings but their actions. The problem arises when we give in to fear and make it the basis of our decisions—which is what the disciples were doing. They needed faith—as Jesus pointed out. Faith doesn’t ignore feelings; it simply refuses to obey them. Getting Personal What is your usual strategy for handling fear? To what degree are your choices determined by fear? When did you last act in faith in the face of fear? What was the outcome? Acknowledging fears can be an important first step in disabling their influence. The psalm writer had a great thought when he wrote, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you” (Psalm 56:3, NLT). What you do before and after you are afraid can be as important as no longer being afraid. Talking to God In prayer today, identify areas of worry and fear. Thank God that he is aware of each one and that, in love, he is working to protect and preserve you.

Beloved children split in two. A child-with: part child, part autism. A part to love and a part to hate. A part to cultivate and a part to eliminate.. Such cultural orientation did not force [Karen] McCarron's .. hand in killing her child, but it nonetheless provides the necessary conditions .. to make this kind of violence possible and even—for those of us monitoring the headlines—normal.

As per the terrorist narrative, the story of autism is told as a kind of 'spreading' pathology, infiltrating normative populations .. Knowing no borders or barriers, autism is framed as .. infiltrating homes, moving next door, and hiding in otherwise normative bodies. Figures of terror, in Bush's words, 'hide in the shadows' (Bush, 2001). Says the voice of autism in Cuaron's film [I am Autism]: they are 'invisible until it's too late' (Cuaron, 2009).

awareness of one's being-toward-disability (to transpose a Heideggerian turn of phrase) may provide the impetus to critically examine one's personal relationship to the possibility of disability and the meaning of disability in a broader social context. This can translate into the idea that "we are all disabled somehow," and lead to a call to abandon the us/them dichotomy that defines so many discussions of intellectual disability.

Haya', in Arabic, conveys the meaning of shame, though the root word of haya ’ is closely associated with life and living. The Prophet stated, “Every religion has a quality that is characteristic of that religion. And the characteristic of my religion is haya, an internal sense of shame, which includes bashfulness and modesty. Most adults alive today have heard it said when they were children, “Shame on you!” Unfortunately, shame has come to be viewed as a negative word, as if it were a pejorative. Parents are now advised never to “shame a child,” never correct a child’s behavior by causing an emotional response. Instead, the current wisdom suggests that people always make the child feel good regardless of his or her behavior. Eventually, what this does is disable naturally occurring deterrents to misbehavior. Some anthropologists divide cultures into shame and guilt cultures. They say that guilt is an inward mechanism and shame an outward one. With regard to this discussion, guilt alludes to a human mechanism that produces strong feelings of remorse when someone has done something wrong, to the point that he or she needs to rectify the matter. Most primitive cultures are not guilt-based, but shame-based, which is rooted in the fear of bringing shame upon oneself and the larger family. What Islam does is honor the concept of shame and take it to another level altogether—to a rank in which one feels a sense of shame before God. When a person acknowledges and realizes that God is fully aware of all that one does, says, or thinks, shame is elevated to a higher plane, to the unseen world from which there is no cover. In fact, one feels a sense of shame even before the angels. So while Muslims comprise a shame-based culture, this notion transcends shame before one’s family—whether one’s elders or parents— and admits a mechanism that is not subject to the changing norms of human cultures. It is associated with the knowledge and active awareness that God is all-seeing of what one does—a reality that is permanent. The nurturing of this realization deters one from engaging in acts that are displeasing and vulgar. This is the essence of the noble prophetic teachings.

Illness is not the problem. You are the problem — as long as the egoic mind is in control. When you are ill or disabled, do not feel that you have failed in some way, do not feel guilty. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not blame yourself either. All that is resistance. If you have a major illness, use it for enlightenment. Anything “bad” that happens in your life — use it for enlightenment. Withdraw time from the illness. Do not give it any past or future. Let it force you into intense present-moment awareness — and see what happens. Become an alchemist.