is winning despite a disabilty twice as sweet.

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Hell folks.

I had thought a about the discussion on losers ( ) (which is now getting cold). There was a discussion in which the idea of losers included blaming medical diagnosis for failure.

In reality, disabilities of all types can be reasons for failure, and some battles take twice the effort to win. Sometimes we loose battles that we put 100% effort into it. So when we are playing by societies rules where winning is (career fulfillment, a happy marriage, peer recognition or social status) it can be harder to win.

On the other hand, gamblers say that money won betting is twice as sweet as money earned. Battling a system that is seldom helpful is always a gamble.

So the question is: are victories won despite disabilities twice as sweet?


Rabbit

Well I don't have a diagnosed disability do you?

I don't know. I haven't had any major victories after learning about AS 4 months ago, so I never framed my successes in the "disability" context.

what does it matter if you never ever win?

Not being like a bunch of sheep who call themselves people isn't a disablility, it is liberation from having to be like everyone else. My mom is disabled, she is in a wheelchair.

I don't have victories, there's no battles.

There were some interesting comments:

I agree about sheep, if you mean normal people, and I never meant to imply that you should accept their rules as intellegent or their judgement as profound. Most, autistics do have a kind of liberation from conformism.

Someone asked if I have a diagnosis. I've had one for about 6 six years and I earned my doctorate after the diagnosis (hence framing things in those terms). I believe however that there is something to be said for framing things that way, it builds self esteem.

I also think that some of the more negative comments (the I have no victories comments). The only two people who I know with a diagnosis don't have enough together to be posting on this web site. Take a few self esteem pills. Write down what you have done. I think there is more that you accomplished than you think.

By the way, when I was teaching in public Universities, I had fair number of students who never learned how to turn on computer (these were normal people or is that normal sheep).

You're right, Rabbit.

I prefer to see AS as being "differently able" from everyone else. In some cases that label is patronising, but in the case of AS it makes more sense than "disabled".

It's like I see everything at a different angle from others. Sometimes it makes it harder, sometimes it makes it easier. In your field you are the best at what you did. If you allow yourself to think what you think about having no victories, you allow others to get the better of you. OK, others may not fully appreciate things at the time, but if you are proved right, say so.

I'm in a field which is more flexible and I can always find someone on my wavelength who can really tune in to what I'm saying. If I've learned anything from the last year it's (a) to trust your instincts on the things that you know best (b) that not even your closest family have the right to try and impose their own vision of you on you - only you have the right to do that. Once I find the key to unlock the door of the prison called home, I will be fine - it's just that I have to put up with a load of patronising people who think they know more about what I know because they read the TV and listen to newspapers (or is it the other way round?!). Even when those papers either have their own agenda at what they're saying or will be saying something else in six months. I've done a lot of research that doesn't involve reading anything, just talking and listening and going from house to house, and I spent the weekend with someone who hasn't got a TV and they grasped the situation better than my mother who is constantly exposed to one set of opinions and thinks she knows what's going on.

That way I can feel quietly confident that I know more about what I know and more about how to put it into practise. It's demoralising at times, but sooner or later I'll be able to say out loud and clear - I told you so. I only hope I don't do it too triumphantly, but hey, I'm proved right more than I'm proved wrong, even in the strangest of circumstances.

Hang on in there.

Yes, I agree with that.

There was a contestant on Wheel of fortune who was apparently over 18, but he sounded like he was a kid. At the end of his show, he solved the bonus puzzle and won $25,000 by solving EBB AND FLOW.

I didn't think he would get it. That just goes to show you, you shouldn't underestimate people.

I think that it is twice as sweet. It felt sweet, when I graduated from High School on the A Honour Roll. I've enjoyed the idea that all of the Students in my Mainstream Classes were finding my name go up in ranking, little by little, starting at the end of my third Semester in Grade 10. The Regular Kids have gradually stopped underestimating and picking on me, and I was starting to be seen as one of them, in their eyes. They still didn't speak to me, because they felt that I wasn't socially loose enough, but they've stopped calling me 'ret*d'. So it is twice as sweet.

I don't like considering myself to have a disability. It feels like I am weak and pathetic to have a disability. I would rather call what I have "weaknesses" because everyone has weaknesses but not disabilities... especially because mental disabilities sound like something that mentally ret*d people have. However, I suppose that I can see your point that winning despite weakness feels good.

That depends if winning involves receiving a large amount of sugary confectionary, and if the disability in question is diabetes.