Flutterfly Invasion

An Open Letter to People Who Want to “Help” Disabled People

As a disabled person, I don’t want your “help”. I want your respect and your acknowledgment that I am a whole and complete human being just the way I am. I don’t want or need your charity. Until you can recognize that I am your equal, someone who deserves to live in the world with dignity, without hearing constantly that she needs to be cured or fixed, that I am a burden on my family and society, that the parts of me that make me ME need to be eradicated, you will never be my ally, and you will never be an ally to a lot of other disabled people either. As a disabled person, I want you to treat me as just that - a *person*. I am not some tragic broken figurine put on this earth so you saintly do-gooders can “help” me and feel better about yourselves. You know how you can help me? Start helping me change the culture we live in, the society that says I’m not good enough just the way I am. And by helping me, you will be helping yourself, because ableism is all about not being perfect enough, holding bodies up to a predetermined standard of ability that no one will ever quite reach. And we’re all judged for being too fat, too thin, too something and not quite something else. We’re all held up to a mythical standard of perfection that has never existed and never will. That’s what all -isms are about - being held up to that standard and having people make judgements about you because you don’t live up to that standard. We’re not pretty enough, or not skinny enough, or not able enough. Nobody fits that perfect mold - we all have skeletons in our closet, things that would be considered “wrong” by society. So by helping me - really, truly, helping me - you are shattering that mold. You are throwing it on the ground and letting the chains that bind you - that bind ALL of us - fall away. Think about how wondrous it would be to finally, simply, be yourself, without having to act for everyone around you. Think about how you are alone in your room, with no one else around. Do you sing off key at the top of your lungs? Do you dance around your room to songs you wouldn’t be caught dead listening to in public? Do you talk to yourself or to your stuffed animals? Do you read books you should’ve stopped reading when you were ten? Wouldn’t it be so nice to be able to do all that in public, if you want to? Without people telling you that you’re weird, or wrong, or immature, or annoying? That’s all I’m asking - to be myself, in all my weird and wonderful ways, without people telling me that I should be someone else. I’m asking you, help me eradicate perfect. I’m not perfect, and neither are you. I know you’re not, because no one is. But because of our imperfections, because of the myriad of things that make up the mosaic of us, we ARE perfect - in all our imperfect glory. So fight with me to eradicate perfect - not as my superior, not as someone who knows more than I do what I want and need - but as my equal, as my ally, as my friend. We’ll learn from each other, and I think you’ll find that I have as much to offer as you do. That’s how you can help me - and that’s how you should.

Tagged: disabilitysocial justicerantperfection