Attitudes towards disability - pt 1

I've been thinking about writing on this topic for a while, I will probably write a few blogs around it.

Today - What does disability look like?

I was recently with a group of teenagers briefly discussing this. I was shocked and rather horrified to hear some teenage girls say that to be disabled means to be in a wheelchair.  The fact is that less than 8% of disabled people use a wheelchair. 
When I say disabled person, what images enter your mind?
The bright young woman with a successful career, the quiet bloke who never talks to anyone, the mother down the road with 4 kids, the older lady with 7 cats, the little boy who hates green veg.
Any of these people could be 'disabled'.
I say 'disabled', because I know many of us don't like the word. It has so many unhelpful connotations, like the wheelchair image, the benefits 'scrounger' image. That's the one I hate the most. Recent statics showed that 97% of claims for disability benefits are NOT fraudulent. All this stereotype does is divide society and lead to hostility and discrimination against disabled people, making it even harder for us to find our place and get training (and maybe) work. 

Some of us may not be like 'normal' people, our minds and/or bodies may not work like yours. However, we are not necessarily 'disabled', just 'differently-abled'. If people were not so fiercely judgmental and ignorant, I think many more disabled people would be able to play a role in society instead of being pushed to the margins of it.

The issues of mental illness and mental disabilities has been overlooked for far too long. How has it become shameful to have a mental illness, to have people judge you and mock you, when if you had a physical illness people would be helping you out? It's so wrong! I'm glad to see the time to change campaign doing good work on this.

Back to topic though - what does disability look like? I think it varies depending on your perception of it, what you see passes through tinted lenses, coloured by your own opinions.
If you look at disabled people with scepticism and judgement, you will only see negative things. 
In reality, disability 'looks' like a human being, a person who has more struggles than other people, seen or unseen. 

If more people were accepting and adaptable, more disabled people would be able to find work. It's not disability keeping people out of mainstream society - it's peoples attitudes towards it.