Accommodation Goes Both Ways

By Barney Mayse

We are a nation within a nation. We are 54 million human beings strong and growing as the population grows. If you live long enough, you will be one of us. We are not volunteers. We did not choose the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And for those who did choose to be one of us, there is usually a damn good reason why.

I did not ask, nor do I desire, to be in the situation I find myself. I struggle each day to find ways to accommodate my life. I do not ask for pity, sympathy, or handouts. And I know I am not alone. We seek and demand that which every American is entitled to: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We are a nation of people with common hopes, dreams, and experiences. We are made up of people with mental, developmental, and physical disabilities, terminal and chronic diseases, environmentally-caused health problems, stress-induced disabilities and war-related injuries; we are physicians, scholars, managers, attorneys, short-order cooks, and the person living next door.

We are the Disabled, and we are proud.

We are the largest single minority within the United States. We do not have a leader or a united voice. In the scheme of things our individual voices seem to have no weight or merit. We must struggle mightily within any system that is supposedly designed to help us in order to get the services that system is supposedly designed to provide for us.

There are federal, state, local and not-for-profit systems designed with the goal of providing services for people with disabilities. When these systems are examined in the light of day, something else appears, a system that once entered becomes a labyrinth of rules and regulations one must adhere to in order to receive valuable services.

Ostensibly the rules and regulations are designed to prevent fraudulent use of the system. Closer examination suggests that perhaps the system has been designed to perpetuate itself. This discussion merits its own article.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines accommodation as “n 1: making or becoming suitable; adjusting to circumstances [syn: adjustment, fitting] 2: a settlement of differences; ‘they reached an accommodation with Japan’ 3: in the theories of Jean Piaget: the modification of internal representations in order to accommodate a changing knowledge of reality.”

There is more to the entry, but the central information is covered with this part of the definition. Adjusting to circumstances by circumventing barriers is part of the daily life of any person with a disability. In fact, a person with a disability is constantly accommodating themselves to the changing nature of their disability.

Now you may be asking, “How is that?” Life is a process, a journey, and in every process and journey there is constant, inevitable change brought on through the course of time, changing internal and external interactions within the body and the outside world.

Accommodation is a multipronged event. Self-adjustments made by a person with a disability are not a starting point. Unless a person with a disability adjusts himself to his surroundings, other accommodations become less likely. For a person with a disability, adjusting to circumstances can assume many different meanings, manifesting itself in a variety of ways.

Whether one is attempting to manage a poorly-repaired curb cut, opening a door from a seated position only to discover that the doorways in the building will not accommodate a wheelchair, or finding out for the first time that movie theaters do not offer closed-captioned viewings, the world has only begun the process of accommodating the 54 million of us who must employ a creative problem-solving process to simply exercise “pursuit” of our inalienable rights.

Making accommodations for a person with a disability within the immediate biological and extended family is an ongoing process. Achieving “reasonable accommodations” offers opportunities and presents challenges.

One of the great mysteries of life is attempting to understand a condition that you have not experienced in your own life.

For example, since I do not have a developmental disability, I do not fully understand that particular experience. I have several choices: avoid them so I do not have to confront reality, treat them differently because they act different, treat them as I would wish to be treated if I were in their shoes and attempt to understand what they are going through.

Sometimes this accommodation is one of the most difficult because family members deny that this is happening and are angry at these circumstances. Life is a changing dynamic and disability can occur to anyone at anytime from birth until death. Your response to your disability determines the quality of your life.

Beyond the circle of family is the circle of friends. Often, when a person becomes disabled many of those who were thought to be friends, disappear never to be heard from again. They are uncomfortable with what has happened. They are unsure how to deal with the person who has the disability.

Rather than investing some time and compassion in continuing to nurture the friendship (if it existed), they leave and return to their comfort zone diminished in their capacity to grow as a person by the choice they make. Comfort zones are important to everyone but when a person is disabled they can only accommodate themselves and the world by understanding their comfort zone and then working at expanding it one person at a time, one activity at a time, one moment at a time.

If the person with a disability is still working the circle of work relationships will require some accommodations in shorter work schedules, altered responsibilities, the use of assistive technology for mobility, vision or other adaptations. Relationships that were once thought to be strong and stable will be tested and some will falter. Others may grow and become stronger. It is the journey of life with a disability.

Accommodations within the community, which includes public as well as private, are an important component of the societal system. How does the larger society accommodate those with a disability?

The Americans with Disabilities Act was a landmark in terms of attempting this effort. It is a beginning but by no means an ending point. Much remains to be done. When the streets of the city are bustling with scooters, wheelchairs, guide dogs and the vast diversity of people with disabilities, when the unemployment rate of people with disabilities matches the unemployment rate of the larger population, when restaurants, theatres, museums, parks, zoos, shopping malls and stores of all sizes, fast food restaurants are welcoming people with disabilities through the design of their facilities, then transformation has begun. Accommodation with the physical infrastructure needs to be accompanied by a change of behavior on the part of the larger population.

Accommodation is often about patience and seeking to understand how to help, when to help and the kind of assistance to provide. The person with a disability has the opportunity and the obligation to teach others what they need, when they need it and what to do. Accommodation is not simply what will be done for me but rather a two way interaction between the person with a disability and the world in which they live.

How often have you as a person with a disability accommodated your family’s requests to take a trip, engage in a family activity or do things that might have a deleterious effect on your disability? How often have you been ignored, looked past or treated in a way that suggested that you were not the same as others?

How does the world change if we discuss our needs with the world? Perhaps not as much as we would like but unless we discuss it the world will assume that they understand what accommodations we need. It is a dialogue. We, the Disabled, have a critical role to play in that dialogue. Often we need to initiate it.

In the zen analogy of the glass of water in which the question is asked: is the glass half empty or half full, I would like to suggest another analogy. The analogy is this that life whether you are disabled or not is a full glass of water. A FULL GLASS OF WATER AND WHO ARE YOU TO TAKE MY OTHER HALF GLASS OF WATER.

My life as a person with a disability is lived with as much zest, energy and enthusiasm as I can muster. I will gladly accept your support, your friendship, your willingness to engage me in a frank discussion of ideas, your humanity. All I ask in return is that you accept me as a human being who is just like you. If we learn to accept each other how will the world be changed?

Within the disabled community there is a tendency to classify different disabilities. What happens if we accept everyone as the human being that they are? Human beings are diverse and unique. There are over 6 billion of us on the planet right now. No two are identical except for the fact that we are all human. Perhaps this is the greatest accommodation of all, accepting our own humanity and the humanity of our brothers and sisters with a disability as well as everyone else who inhabits the planet Earth in the 21^st century. It is our opportunity. Let us make the most of it.