by Stanley W. Shura

Created on: February 02, 2010

"Just do it!"

"You gotta pick yourself up and dust yourself off!"

"God helps those who help themselves!"

"Gotta grab yourself by the bootstraps and get 'er done!"

Those are a mere sampling of the myriad faux-wisdom that pervades the culture of "decent society".  Oh, under statistically normal circumstances of your typical Mc-Demographic, they're harmless enough.  Most of the time, you can even bet that the utterers of those fortune-cookie gems have at least a kernel of good intention in their hearts.  They who would spout off these treasured cliches of all guru-wannabes, may *mean* well, in part, and a fraction of these sages, albeit a miniscule one, may not even have the usual ulterior self-aggrandizing posturing as a primary motive.  There is, however, one blindingly glaring and awful problem.

They're full of crap.

To they and we with so-called "invisible disabilities", these euphamisms are as tired, worn, irrelevant and inept as they sound, or as they should sound to anyone with any introspective skill or tendency.  They're trite.  They're hopelessly vague.  They're judgmental.  And more to the point, they are about as useful as a Braille dashboard!  And yet, that is not even the worst or greatest obstacle faced by those with difficulties others have trouble seeing. 

The most difficult part of trying to get a handle of and help for your cognitive, affective, developmental, neurological and other disabilities not primarily defined by a sensory, respiratory, muscular or mobility impairment is that you have to work and struggle just to be identified as somebody with a different receptive, social, mood or processing style than most.  And that's another problem right there.  This word "style" is about as passive-aggressive an expression as "you just have to want it" or "it's all in your head"!  For that matter, the well-intended but ignorant "sexual preference" falls within said sentiments.  These all are disempowering, accusatory, and can be very frustrating and overwhelming to hear over and over again.

Why?  Because they all imply some level of choice or control.  They indicate an attitude among those folks who are outside of the group they are judging that suggests we "atypicals" somehow bring it upon ourselves.  That it is thus some type of karma, or which will resolve itself upon the learning of some obscure "lesson" or passing of some unspecific

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