by Samantha Pratt-Tyler

Created on: June 01, 2009

Disabled in our society

Many people are disabled and yet to look at them you think they are healthy because they do not fit the norm of what we associate as being disabled, so therefore you see them getting in and out of a car with a handicap sticker and wonder why or how they got it.

We are a society that judges by what we see and how we relate to what facts we know and hold onto as truth.

There are many people who are disabled because they have multi chemical sensitivity. Yes, it is real and it is disabling to the person who has it. By looking at them they look normal and healthy but once they are around anything scented, chemical, or a mix of them they are no longer healthy but struggling to breathe as they have an asthma attack.

It is considered disability to have multi chemical sensitivity because where can you go to find a job that no one wears anything scented? Or uses no chemicals at all? To my knowledge, I have found none. If the people go fragrance free, people who come into your business will not. It is like a catch 22.

Most people do not believe that anything scented (and oh there are so many things on the market with fragrance that even going to the store is hard to do) can cause an asthma attack or be so bad that you become disabled from it. I am proof it is truth.

We are a nation prone to think we must have fragrance in everything for we must hide our own body scent. Heavens forbid if we perspire just a little bit! The fragrance industry has been big business hyping everything we use with scent, to mask anything and everything but at some point it is too much and the body cannot take the senses overload it causes and rebels against it all. To make it worse, even our cleaning products have fragrance added to it along with our laundry products, air fresheners that spurt out fragrance now instead of the old fashion kind that was solid. When and where will it end?

People who are disabled are like anyone else, we are just trying to be normal and have the same advantages as those who are "normal" have. We are still useful to society and can contribute if given a chance, but as long as we remain ignorant of the different types of disabilities out there we will never grow enough to see where disabled people can serve, work, and be useful and to learn from them. And there is much we can learn from people with disabilities if we put aside the judgments, the staring and have the attitude of wanting to learn.

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