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Social Anxiety - when your impairments exclude you from meeting people

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  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    Access is an often aired issue. There are always difficulties though. I live in a basically very old town and, whilst a lot of new buildings have been put up, a lot of the buildings themselves were built before wheelchair or disability access was even thought of. Also many buildings have restrictions on changes so they cannot be made better. Still, though some efforts on the pavements have been made the standard of thoughtfulness is lacking and the maintenance is dreadful. On one street the pavement is so difficult to navigate that it is better and safer to use the road. Fortunately this is just an access road so little if any traffic uses it daytimes.

    One thought does come to mind though. Considering that the disabled are a minority why is it that we feel it necessary to demand special treatment? Also why should more laws be made to further the interests of a minority? Raises an interesting point if every minority started demanding the same special treatment.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • Socialanxiety
    Socialanxiety Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    edited January 2018
    I feel terrible for this man. People who have disabilities of any kind are treated badly by society, and this can worsen our social anxiety massively. We need compassion, kindness and practical help.
    John, www.ibeatmysocialanxiety.com
  • thespiceman
    thespiceman Community member Posts: 6,388 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello @Socialanxiety Welcome to the forum.  How are you?  Please can I say the big problem is them out there the public.  Is it not?  If you read my stories on this forum daily encounters with people who have no idea about me how I am what I am.  I am a polite old fashioned gentleman but the social problems of the disabled are becoming more and more evident.  I have anxiety plus depression plus a physical disability.  Problem is I have a label stuck on my head saying this.  I am judged on appearance.  Simple things and tasks are turned into a sweaty nightmare for people who are not tolerant, not patient.  Simple visit to Post Office to get stamps yesterday into a sweaty nightmare and horror.  Every day going out is one.  Have fingers missing use money bags for change and a wallet for money.  Not easy to get change out and money not easy these new notes.  Change on floor, busy queues, etc.  Then there is the as we have said the accessibility of places.  Nothing is going to change is it.  We need compassion, kindness and practical help great yes we do.  Unless the whole country has a disability and is like our community nothing is going to change is it.  Nice to talk to you hope to speak to you soon
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  • Socialanxiety
    Socialanxiety Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    Hello. Nice to meet you. Yes, I can relate very well your sweaty nightmare comment. That's how going out and into shops etc always was for me. Daily meditation and focusing only on I'm doing at that precise moment helped to change me (mindfulness). People have difficulty relating to problems that they've never experienced. Still, I think we should still try to put ourselves in the place of others, and imagine how they are feeling. Empathy and consideration. Nice chatting to you as well, and I wish you all the best. John
  • thespiceman
    thespiceman Community member Posts: 6,388 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello @Socialanxiety Thank you for reply.  I am on meds for anxiety and also for depression.  I have tried this mindfulness courses before.  Nothing seems to go in and I had problems being able to understand it.  Please can I also say I try to think of others who are not like me or part of our community  I am a Christian and have moral values.  I feel am kind and considerate.  The issue here is the way I am treated by others who are not like me.  People do have difficulty relating to problems they have never experienced.  Not only do they not understand myself but want to dominate and control.  Many wont even talk or even worse talk down to you.  Till you have had that. Remember before you speak people are making their own mind up.  The way to treat you.  Till I get the respect and as you call empathy from others who are not like me or in our community.  I always be on edge and have to be on guard.  If you wished to look at my pieces or blogs or threads plus others you will see the problems that are really happening in this so called equal society.  I hope you do.  Nice to chat and I hope to speak to you soon.  
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  • Alex22
    Alex22 Community member Posts: 10 Connected
    "One thought does come to mind though. Considering that the disabled are a minority why is it that we feel it necessary to demand special treatment? Also why should more laws be made to further the interests of a minority? Raises an interesting point if every minority started demanding the same special treatment." 

    That's an interesting point you make @Topkitten

    In my view the disabled are not asking for special treatment. We want to have the same rights and opportunities as everybody else in society. For us to be on equal terms with everybody else we need adjustments to be made, either physically to buildings or to people's attitudes. We don't want to be treated more favourably than everybody else. 

    In fact it is in EVERYBODY'S interest to create equality for the disabled because anybody can easily become disabled at any time. If not through disease or illness or accidents, it would be through old age. Society is getting older and people are living longer than ever before, so therefore there are more disabled people than ever before. So it makes sense to eradicate as many barriers to equality for the disabled as possible.

    That is my view anyway.


  • thespiceman
    thespiceman Community member Posts: 6,388 Disability Gamechanger
    edited February 2018
    Hello @Alex22 Thank you for the points raised.  That is the big question is it not.  The general public do not recognise our community.  We are a minority.  I used to say before you decide to be critical accuse and abuse walk a mile in my shoes.  This I would say to non disabled people who would treat me badly.  I have said two things can not stop old age and with it the possibility of being disabled through old age.  Get shot down by people who I would say it to.  Until we get treated the same the barriers will still be there.  We can go over them if we as a community make a voice.  Have a shout.  You have the power so does this community.  Change can only come by supporting each other in an equal fairer society.  Looking towards the injustices and discrimination we all suffer.  We as community as you have said struggle to get access to events or have a social life.  When and how that will be who knows.  All I know the situation has to change.  The work and struggle and to strive has been going on too long.  I do agree with your views and opinions.  Thank you hope to talk you soon.
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  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    edited January 2018
    Thank you @Alex22 for making that clear. I do play devil's advocate at times. Whilst I agree, I have found that when I am amongst or talking to healthy people (even older ones), the idea of mixing with the disabled is the furthest thing from their minds. At a cost to myself I can appear to be almost healthy and do so often when I am out with the MEETUP people and they are all mostly healthy or have early stage or trivial restrictions. Interestingly I haven't really come across any group aimed at the disabled specifically and only one other person is severely disabled and trying to fit in. I do find though that there are definitely some that will talk to me when I take the initiative but will usually stay a fair distance from me and not make an effort to include me. It is difficult to be certain though as, especially at the moment, I am not in the best frame of mind to fit in and be completely accepted.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • Dominique
    Dominique Community member Posts: 16 Connected
    Hi Alex, I have moderate athetoid ataxic cerebral palsy and requested from my social worker an interpretation facility from my carers before I started Uni way back in 1990 because I have a speech problem. She refused me this if my carers could not also then become friends with those students who would've become my friends, through my carer/interpreter, and wanted my Uni friends to also have been my carers friends, as well as my carers, who lived in my Hall of Residence with me, having their own friends from the student body. So all my student friends would've been shared with my carers. As an atheist who'd been brought up in controlling religion, didn't want this. 

    So at Uni my carers wouldn't interpret my speech for me - even though this was only needed until the students got used to it - and therefore I didn't make as many friends at Uni the first time as I could've, which sickened me because I felt very isolated as a disabled person throughout my whole university degree, perhaps apart from in lectures. Broken bones hurt, but loneliness hurts in a similar way. I know that today social workers can't do this to disabled people, that they can't refuse us interpreters, certainly in Scotland where we still have the Independent Living Fund. We are people the same as anyone else having friendship ambitions and socialisation techniques, and I am rudely aware today that you specify a carer's job on your job description or support plan. According to the ILF, if you say you want your carer to interpret your speech with the intention of making friends, then they must.

    Although I had some friends at lectures where I was determined to succeed meant that I answered questions when I knew I was right, believing that my lecturer could work out what I was saying, I still had few friends in my Hall of Residence because my social worker said my carers were not there to help me make friends but were only there to dress me and provide me with personal care. This experience has affected the rest of my life which hasn't gone the way I had planned, again because my next social worker didn't see my point of view of my context. 

    We need to make sure through carer codes of practice that our own contextualisation of our world is understood by our social workers and carers and that our point of view of our rights is respected such that our future is made by us and not by our social workers. 

    I'm now studying again, because I really enjoy the work, but this time online, which is a much better experience! 
    Dominique

  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    I have a very low opinion of Social Care as a whole. Despite being assessed as needing help to go to GP and Dentist appointments I was never allowed it initially. This led to me not having a GP at all for 3 months because I was de-registered and could not go to any surgery to register. My complaint to mu MP was simply passed onto Social Care's internal complaints department who, instead of upholding mu complaint, gave my Social Worker a glowing report.

    At a later time I was given a new Social Worker, an inept trainee. This one messed up so badly that in order to save her job I was reassessed as no longer needing help at all, despite being in worse health than before. Their report also castigated me for being abusive, sexually harassing carers and completely impossible to deal with. So now I am blacklisted from having carer support. Ofc the inept trainee kept her job as a result.

    I don't know if they are such lying scheming bitches everywhere round the country or whether it is just a local problem. I do know that they cannot be trusted under any circumstances. I have been contacted by 3 other departments all of whom claimed that they could not do this to me and would sort it out and each got back to me eventually stating that there was nothing they could do. The people in charge seem to be middle aged women who are quite prepared to do and say anything so that they can provide decent support for other women. It's absolutely disgusting.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • Alex22
    Alex22 Community member Posts: 10 Connected
    Hi @Dominique
    Your experience sounds familiar to mine when I was at University. My hearing loss made it difficult for me to talk to other students and make friends. But my carers seemed to get on better with the other students than I did because they had no such communication problems. And I think the students preferred to talk to my carers then to me anyway. It's really common that able-bodied people talk to the carers of disabled people rather than the disabled person themselves. The carers that I have at the moment do try to say to people that they should talk to me rather than them. But because of my hearing loss I will have difficulties talking to them anyway if it's a noisy environment.

    Some carers are better than others, and unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones out there. At University I had about 15 different carers in three years. Of which only about 5 were really good. I think the best carers should help you with whatever you need regardless of what the social worker says. Interacting with other people especially a university is very important. The social aspect is almost as important as the academic aspect my opinion. It's all part of the University experience. If carers are not willing to help you get the full experience then something needs to change. And you are quite right that The codes of practice should be dictated by the service users themselves not social workers who have never actually needed carers.
  • Dominique
    Dominique Community member Posts: 16 Connected
    Alex - it's great to hear someone else has had the same experience as me! Although I am dismayed that my problem with loose and laughing carers is widespread. I hated other students, especially members of the Christian Union, supposedly supporting my carers to interact with me, by talking to them and not me, when it was me who needed support to interact with my lazy and egocentric carers. I did find support from the Hall wardens who were often outstanding at saving me from indignity and incontinence (my carers wouldn't be in their rooms when I needed them) by physically assisting me themselves or by sidelining another student nearby the toilet to assist me, but unfortunately they did not manage to save me from my future carers who were from yeatanother social worker.  


    Fortunately for me the head warden of my Halls used to be the doctor at my special school's, so he believed everything I said about my carers when normally you wouldn't. He made a very successful intervention about five weeks into my degree which sobered my carers up - literally as well. However, this only saved me from insanity and basic disrespect and did not elevate me to having the full social experience of university which I could've had if my carers hadn't mattered to other people so much. After the first few lectures in every year, my lecturers didn't give a toss about my carers because of how I answered the questions, and since it was always the students who cared for me in lectures and in the lab, they couldn't care less about my carers either and gave them dirty looks etc when my carers sometimes assisted me to take my jacket off before lectures, if they spoke to me unkindly or nastily. So I felt very much loved in lectures but not really in the Halls. 

    I think something needs to change about the disabled students' experience of university social life because my experience was nauseating. We need a marketing campaign perhaps with a TV advert saying "Don't talk to my carer, talk to me please. Your exchanges with my carers may hurt." 

  • Socialanxiety
    Socialanxiety Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    It's difficult to put myself in your shoes @alex22 and @thespiceman, but I empathize with both your plights. I also have disabilities, albeit non visible ones. I've been made fun of and judged in many derogatory ways for decades, so I can relate, although my problems are different to yours. We all want to be respected and treated kindly. Really shouldn't be too much to ask for. I hope things get better for you both.  I treat people's social anxiety problems through my website: www.ibeatmysocialanxiety.com. I've also written several articles about social anxiety that might help you. Stay strong friends, John

  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    I don't think this is a carer problem per se, more a society issue. People simply do not think of others. It is all about themselves. Most social network succeed by self aggrandisement and this help people to become more and more self centred. They simply do not see what is going on around them when it relates to others.

    It is a shame that it has affected you in the way it has but, from what I have heard, university if full of people all acting this way.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • Socialanxiety
    Socialanxiety Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    Hi @thespiceman and @Alex22. I don't know how you feel, but I can empathise. I have been negatively judged and made fun of for decades, as I have disabilities too, albeit invisible ones and I developed social anxiety because of this. We all need respect and kindness. Shouldn't be too difficult for people to be nice to us. I hope things improve for you both. I am Christian too and Buddhist. Both help me a great deal. I help people with social anxiety, through my website http://www.ibeatmysocialanxiety.com/ I've also written several about social anxiety, which may help you. Good luck to both of you. John

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