"Special Treatment"

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[Image Description: Against a mint and purple colored plaster wall, the word “SPECIAL” is spelled out in colorful graffiti lettering. Below it is an empty white board] Image Credit: Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

“Special treatment”: two words I’ve become all too familiar with as a person with a disability. Unfortunately, I would imagine that’s the case for a lot of us.

This past week, I found out someone wasn’t happy with a particular form of accommodation I was getting. I don’t think they used the words “special treatment”, but that was the undertone of the comment as I understood it.

The first time this phrase was used in relation to me (that I can remember) was in college. This is a story I’ve shared before, but will repeat for the sake of this post. I was going into my junior year and moving out of the dorms and into on campus apartments. I requested a 1st floor room if I was going to be placed in a building that didn’t have an elevator and was trying to find a roommate also. I met with the head of the Disability Services Department first and she arranged a meeting for me with the head of Student Housing. From the get-go, I could tell the Student Housing rep I met with was not happy to be meeting with me. I assumed she was just having a bad day. But when she got up from the table for a second, I noticed she had an email in front of her from the head of Disability Services. The email said I was using my disability to get better housing and was asking for “special treatment”.

Of all the places you would not expect to be accused of asking for special treatment, it would be the Disability Services department at your university. That on its own blew me away, but it was the first time I had ever seen the accusation ever written down in such plain terms. I was quite sure other people had said it behind my back before in other instances and I just never knew. You can feel an internal shift when it happens though. You start to wonder if everyone has felt that way behind your back all along. It compromises your trust in others and even in yourself.

The other ways I’ve been accused of getting or asking for “special treatment” have come in more micro forms. Asking for help because I literally can’t open a door into an office and getting a snarky email back to the tune of “how dare you ask about that?” Being upset when the elevator breaks down so I literally can’t get to where I need to and no one seeming to think it’s a big deal. Asking if I can just avoid stairs at an amusement park.

Somehow “special treatment” became the synonym for “accessibility” or “accommodation”. At no point did I ask for the Ritz Carlton of dorm rooms simply because I was disabled. I’ve never asked to skip the lines on rides. I need closer parking because if I fall, I can’t get up. If you’ve fallen in the middle of a busy parking lot with cars coming at you and you can’t get up, maybe you’ll understand how important this is. I need to be able to open a door into somewhere I go often. I’ve never asked for anything unless it’s something I physically can’t do. I’ve only ever requested disabled seating at a concert twice in my life (some of that is because I don’t think they’ll believe I’m disabled and I get tired of justifying myself to people). I’ve pushed myself to the point of pain so many times in my life in order to not inconvenience someone else or seem like I’m asking for “special treatment”.

Asking for these things has apparently meant that I’ve been “using my disability” to get something better for myself. Asking for accessibility and accommodation so we a) don’t hurt ourselves or cause more pain, b) so we literally do something we need to, c) can have the same experience as non-disabled people isn’t asking for “special treatment.” It’s what we need and what we deserve.

I put on a brave face a lot too. I try not to show the pain I might be in, or I just try to power through it. Because I’m able to stand and walk for periods too, I think people are often more skeptical about what I’m dealing with and how “bad” my disability is. But that’s a topic for another time.

Now that I’m older, I understand that these accusations are often because of something going on with the other person. It doesn’t really have all that much to do with me. It has way more to do with how society still sees people with disabilities and accessibility. We’re expected to fit ourselves into the world, instead of the world shaping itself more for us, so that we all can enjoy and experience things. And if we start advocating for that instead of just being thankful for the few bread crumbs we might get, it’s going to upset some people.

I don’t want “special treatment”, but what I do want is “equal treatment”. I want “understanding treatment”. I want “accessible treatment.”