Ever try to make friends with other people w/ disabilities?

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It's funny--several times I've made a friend, only to realize later on that they, like me, have an invisible disability of some kind. I think those mutual experiences probably gave us enough in common that we liked hanging out with each other and became friends.

I also have some friends who have physical disabilities, or who have no disability but are eccentric or gifted. Most of the people I find interesting, and who find me interesting, tend to be pretty far away from average. People who are very "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) are nice people, for the most part; but I tend to embarrass them and they tend to bore me.

Most of my friends fall into one or more of the following categories: gender variant or transgender, queer, and disabled.

Everyone of my past/present friends have disabilities of some sort.
I found it much easier to get along with those who do.

Non-disabled people can be nice, too, though. It's surprising how many nondisabled people actually share parts of the experience of having a disability simply because they are part of some minority group or another. Verdandi mentions sexual-orientation/gender minorities, for example. There's also immigrants, or people who don't "fit in" because of their hobbies, their preferences, their personalities... So give everybody a chance. Sure, you might find you have the most in common with others who also have disabilities, but don't limit yourself--every person you get to know has a different way of seeing the world. You expand your horizons when you meet people outside your usual social group.

I would never go out with a woman with Downs, ewwww. I think it is 100 times worse than Asperger can be, so it would be ridiculous to use Asperger as a reason to stoop down to that level.

But in terms of other conditions, such as bipolar, eating disorder, and other things, yes I would go for it. And in fact I clicked with one bipolar girl amaisingly well because we had in common the isolation from other people; but then she turned me down because I told her about my mom sheltering me, which I still regret. She was the best option I could ever have, by far.

Other than that I also dated a girl who was overweight and had polycistic ovaries. But at the end it became very draining. However she was the one who broke up with me; otherwise I was going to stay with her simply out of sympathy and desire to help.

I have found it interesting in this regard. I have noticed that individuals with disabilities or experience with disabilities and disorders fall into these two categories: Understanding and Biased beyond reason.

They either understand because they have seen and been around people that are different or are different themselves, or are extremely jaded and unbelieving and pin problems and behaviors as fallacies of character rather than actual excusable problems.

Last edited by Mirror21 on 08 Aug 2012, 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What exactly, do you mean by this? I do not understand if you mean to be condescending by speaking of stooping low, or that you think that it would be difficult to be friends? Explain please.

I think it would be difficult to be friends. Back in high school during lunch I occasionally ran into some girl with Downs. I cant imagine anyone being friends with her in any way other than trying to help her. I am not being condenscending, I just cant imagine how that would play out.

I think you need to take a good, hard look at yourself and your mental construct of Down syndrome. So in high school you met one person with Down syndrome, and they were annoying enough that you couldn't imagine wanting to make friends with them? Okay. But--how in the world does it make sense to judge every other person with DS as though they were exactly the same as that one annoying person you met once?

Why would dating someone with DS be "stooping down", anyway? Assuming that they are adults and capable of understanding what it means to date someone, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. People with DS are not in any way inferior to people with Asperger's, and it really makes me mad to see you imply that they might be.

I never said she was annoying. On the contrary, back then I was fascinated with mental illness so I had a lot of fun watching her as well as a couple of other disabled kids.

All I am saying is that her interaction consisted of taking few commands from her teachers and following them. I never saw her actually having conversation. So I cant imagine how she could contribute to a relationship.

Regarding judging all people by the example of one person, you have to keep in mind that Downs syndrome is a SINGLE GENE disorder. Thats why I assume they are all the same. If you take other things like schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. they have never been able to find a single gene that causes them, so in these cases yes there is a lot of variation. But in case of things like Downs or Fragile X I dont imagine there would be so much variation.

Well, I don't really try to make friends with people normally, it doesn't really make sense to me to try to make friends with people instead of just to make friends with people who it works out to be friends with, but at the moment I'm in a state where I'm at a particular high point at getting along best with autistic people.

There has been one person who I have been more actively tried to make friends with, it did in fact work, and she's autistic.

I don't want to limit it to autistic people or disabled people, but I am limiting (consciously and subconsciously) it to people who have a particular quality that I have a hard time explaining that in my experience is more common in autistic people (and not all autistic people have).

One of the other people I interact with most isn't autistic though he is very much not neurotypical.

Same here. I do have a few friends and antiquates with AS and mental health conditions such as bi polar which I didn't know until they told me. If I like someone it's because of them having similar interests, honest and frankness or whatever I like about them. Like another poster I also know many GLBTIQ and the sub groups within people. I can relate with not being the same as the normal population like them and they like me have a 'invisibleness' with what they have.

I was friends with a disabled woman for about a year, I really enjoyed her friendship, but it went the way all of my friendships go - at some point they lose interest and disappear. She called me several times 2.5 years later, to renew the friendship, I screened her calls.

Several points:

Down syndrome is not a "single gene disorder". DS comes from having three copies, instead of two copies, of Chromosome 21. That's why it's also called "trisomy 21". People with Down syndrome don't actually have the same "down syndrome gene"; there is no Down syndrome gene. Down syndrome people are as genetically diverse a group as people with the usual number of chromosomes. As a result, Down syndrome affects them in extremely variable ways. Some live on their own; some need 24-hour care. Some support themselves; others have to be talked through the simplest jobs. Some are introverts, others are extroverts. Some are mean, some are nice, some are annoying, and some are wonderful to be with. Some are married; others live with their families, alone, or in supported living arrangements.

Fragile X also isn't strictly a "single gene disorder". The gene that causes it (most of the time) is the FMR1 gene, and everyone has one. Fragile X is caused by having too many copies of that gene. The effects of this duplication is also extremely variable, ranging from severe intellectual disability to no disability at all.

Of course there are single-gene disorders. But, as humans, we have somewhere on the order of twenty thousand different genes. One of those genes can glitch up and cause a disorder, and some of these disorders include intellectual disability. But that's one gene--out of twenty-some-thousand! All of those other genes have all the variation that human genes always have. Genes can even switch each other on and off, interact with the environment, and become active or inactive through the lifetime. And as a result, even when you look at a group of people with the exact same genetic mutation causing the exact same genetic disorder, you will find they are as diverse as human beings in general are.

I've had a few here and there. I knew a couple of aspies who where good acquaintances. I found it hard to bond with one of the aspie guys, he was very nice but it was just very hard to bond with him. He would just talk on and on about his day and he had a hard time holding a reciprocal conversation. The other aspie, I think we coulda become friends but then we didnt have the opportunity to bond. I had a friend that was bipolar. And I recently made a friend at work whos adhd and dyslexia.

Okay even though it is not a single gene but extra chromosome, its still true that the cause is identical which is what made me feel the symptoms are identical too.

Now I am not going to go against facts. Since you told me that there are people with Downs who live independently and happily married and there are ones who need constant help, then obviously my conclusion was wrong. But still it is surprising from scientific point of view. I mean, all these other "normal" gene variations outside of the extra chromosome are not big enough to "cancel" what the extra chromosome does. Or are you saying that extra chromosome simply makes a person more "sensitive" to that other variations and "opens a bag full of warms" to make other variations have the kinds of effects they wouldnt have in general population? That would be the only explanation I can think of as to why people with Downs are so different from each other.