There are many things a person with disabilities can't do because of their physical condition. For example, I use a personal attendant, sometimes referred to as a direct care worker or a caregiver (and yes, these are “essential workers” in the COVID 19 period, but that is for another article). For the purpose of this article, I will use the term caregiver — it isn’t the term I prefer but mainstream society loves to use it.
So, let’s get into it! A caregiver is very important to people with disabilities and they can often become good friends, but it is not always advisable to mix the two. There are many reasons why it is not advisable (I see a future article on this topic too) and here is one reason: developing too much of a friendship can interfere with the employer/employee working relationship. People with disabilities try to develop friendships outside of the caregiver working relationship because, like most people, we just want to develop normal friendships with others that have nothing to do with our day-to-day caregiving.
This leads me to two real-life interactions that make this point more clear. During the early part of my Christian walk, I was in a Men's Discipleship training course and, as part of this training, we were encouraged to fellowship with each other outside of our regular meetings. This was a very enjoyable period of my life. I began to move away from my comfort zone and explored developing new friendships. I was invited out to a movie by one of my fellow students who was also a working professional with a similar educational background, and a great sense of humor. I just knew we would become great friends. I was excited, you see, because he didn't have a disability and, most importantly, he wasn't my caregiver.
The movie was great! I recall coming out of the movie laughing and discussing parts of the movie when my potential good friend ran into someone he knew. He introduced me and they started a ‘let’s catch-up’ conversation. I quickly sensed that this conversation would last for a while, so I moved away to give them time to talk. We were in a mall, so I started to window shop, moving away from them a little bit. Well, about 5 minutes went by and I started back. I quickly noticed my ‘new friend’ moving frantically towards me, pushing past people in the mall to get to me. When he finally got to me, he immediately started to scold me, shouting, ''Where did you go"? "I’ve been looking all over for you!” "Why would you do that?” "Why would you just wander off like that?" I found myself explaining my actions to him like I wasn't a 38-year-old adult but like I was a little child wandering off from a parent.
Long story short, that was the beginning of the ending of what I thought was the making of a great friendship. My potential friend never truly understood I didn't need another caregiver relationship. I just needed a friend.
Okay, one more real-life interaction before I move to the life lesson for good-intentioned folks.
This happened recently to me, a now 60-year-old adult. Let me set the mood - I am sitting outside reading a book on my iPad and my caregiver (age 30-something) walks up and says:
“It’s about to rain, you should go inside,” to which I reply, ‘’Young man, I have forgotten most of the stuff that you still need to learn!”
He looked at me, stunned, as though I was joking, and soon realized by my lack of a smile, I wasn’t, and then he left.
I know it sounds harsh, but a grown man can only take so much of being treated like a child in one lifetime!
Okay, good-intentioned folks, here is the life lesson - it is a myth that non-disabled people are obligated to "take care of" people with disabilities. Stop it! Enough is enough!
The reality is that people with all types of disabilities are not always in need of assistance in everyday situations. Often persons with disabilities are fully capable individuals seeking to be treated like the adults that they are. If we need assistance, we are fully capable of asking.
In the case of both of my real-life interactions, both my potential friend and my current caregiver (no, I didn’t fire him) didn't really view me as an equal. They got caught up in the myth that they needed to take care of me in some way; that they needed to protect me. I just needed a friend and I am quite capable of seeing the possibility of rain and I do not need to be told to go inside…. Enough is Enough!
