72 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 1 P158 illuminated a fallacy that can result in Minimization: “Because my disability is invisible people assume I need no help, [and] when I do, they discount my disability. I hear, ‘you don’t look like you have a disability‚’ ‘don’t sell yourself short.’” Finally, P137 spoke to the blame that underlies Minimization: On[e] of the most frequent microaggressions encountered living with my particular invisible disability (type 1 diabetes) is the ableist idea that health is entirely a personal responsibility. There is this assumption that whatever problems we face with our health are a direct result of poor choices (dietary, financial) completely ignoring the systematic problems with for-profit health care in this country. Denial of Personhood Denial of Personhood is characterized by PWD being “treated with the assumption that a physical disability indicates decreased mental capacity and therefore, being reduced to one’s physicality” (Conover et al., 2017a, p. 581); such microaggressions can occur “when any aspect of a person’s identity other than disability is ignored or denied” (Keller & Galgay, 2010, p. 249). Twenty-six participants (28.88%) endorsed this theme. For example, P142 described their experiences in the workplace that illustrate the erroneous belief that PWD have diminished mental capacity: “All my life I was pushed out of jobs for not hearing. People would actually tell me, ‘if you can’t hear—how can you do anything’ even though all my performance reviews exceeded expectations.” P123 spoke to a similar sentiment: “[I] am often asked ‘what’s wrong with you?’ ‘how did you get through college?’” Finally, P173 summarized the belief that seemingly underlies Denial of Personhood microaggressions and issued a corrective action: Disabled doesn’t mean stupid. We can figure out most things for ourselves and if we can’t we know to ask for help. Don’t tell us how to live our lives or say we don’t deserve love, happiness and children. If you don’t know the level of someone’s disability you shouldn’t have the right to judge them about such things. Otherization Seventeen participants (18.88%) described Otherization as part of their narrative responses. Otherization microaggressions are those in which PWD are “treated as abnormal, an oddity, or nonhuman, and imply people with disabilities are or should be outside the natural order” (Conover et al., 2017a, p. 581) and that their “rights to equality are denied” (Keller & Galgay, 2010, p. 249). Participants shared several examples of these types of microaggressions. For instance, P140 shared: When we (PWD) ask for simple things (e.g., can you turn on the captioning) and people grumble, say they can’t, etc. it just reinforces that we’re not on equal footing and at least for me it eats away a little bit every time. P185 indicated another manifestation of Otherization: “As a deaf person, I get frustrated when whoever I’m talking to stops listening when someone else (non-deaf person) speaks verbally, leaving me mid-sentence.” P108 shared that they have been “prayed for in public without asking,” while P106 expressed, “I hate when people compliment me on how well I push my chair or say I must have super strong arms. I just have normal arms not athletic looking or anything.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDU5MTM1