Disabilites: Curses or Blessings?

Imagine living an entire, dreadful life where every item in every single glare was black and white. Or every sprint a person takes leaves the individual breathless. Or picture an innocent, young child who cannot talk or utilize other major abilities like most of the other kids can. These are just few of the many possible scenarios anyone in the U. S. , or even the rest of the world, can have. These scenarios so to speak are disabilities. According to (http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/disabilities) a disability is a physical or mental handicap, especially one that prevents a person from living a full, normal life.

Disabilities are indeed categorized as being either physical or mental handicaps, and can range from color blindness and asthma to forms of learning disabilities. Also, disabilities can occur at any stage of an individual’s life. The person can be born with the disability, or can retrieve at later age of their life. Whether the age is 16 or 80, a person can obtain a disability at the most unexpected time of their life. For example, autism is a type of mental disability that a person is generally born with. In fact, autism affects 1 in every 110 kids and is currently the #1 growing disease in America (http://www. utismspeaks. org/what-autism/faq). Additionally, autism affects more people than cancer, HIV, and diabetes combined (http://www. autismspeaks. org/what-autism/faq). However, many people can attain a type of disability throughout their life like arthritis, which is a chronic, as well as, inflammatory disease that affects a human’s bones/discs, and can lead to multiple symptoms (http://www. buzzle. com/articles/arthritis/. Yet, despite the endless negative effects of physical, mental, and even developmental disabilities on Americans, these curses have actually been blessings in disguise throughout American history.

Many Americans, like presidents or inventors, have positively impacted our country and even left legacies within history. Yet, almost all of these legends had a type of disability. So, perhaps more people have disabilities than most Americans presumed. Maybe disabilities affect so many Americans that these “special” people within society aren’t so special or different after all. These people may even be something that defies the dictionary’s definition of a disability, normal. There are three categories of disabilities, yet the physical category has the most disabilities, as well as, the most varying.

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Any issues relating to sight, hearing, chronic functions, or mobility are forms of physical disabilities. For instance, blindness, which is loss of vision/color due to mutations in a gene that produces a protein required by the retina (http://www. buzzle. com/articles/disabilities/), is the most common physical disability relating to the human’s sense of sight. Nevertheless, famous Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman, who rescued hundreds of slaves from torture in South and lead to freedom in the North, developed blindness due to a severe head injury from a cruel slave owner (http://www. isabled-world. com/artman/publish/famous-blind. shtml). But that didn’t stop Tubman from giving liberty to all of her fellow slaves. Another inspiring, American woman that developed blindness, and even hearing impairment, at a rather younger age is Helen Keller. Though Helen Keller had to live her entire life with 2 of the 5 major human senses not functioning, she would still graduate college and morph into a world-famous speaker and author. Keller is remembered as being an advocate or supporter of people with disabilities (http://www. disabled-world. com/artman/publish/famous-blind. shtml).

Speaking of people with hearing impairments, another brilliant American with that particular disability is the famous inventor Thomas Edison. Regardless of the deafness he attributed from scarlet fever during childhood, as well as, the other disabilities he obtained like asperser syndrome and dyslexia, Edison still managed to greatly aid America with the simple invention of a light bulb and the phonograph (http://www. disabled-world. com/artman/publish/famous-deaf. shtml). If being blind or deaf was bad enough, just imagine being able to walk one day and then the next day unable to control the many muscles of the human body.

Mobility disabilities like arthritis, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s disease, and even stroke are just some of many examples of disabilities that a human can acquire at any moment of their precious life. Even with paralysis, another mobility disability that a medical condition where a person loses all the control over his/her muscles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) still managed to serve at the 32nd President of the U. S. for a record-holding 4 terms. Being paralyzed from the waist down, FDR executed multiple treatments like UV lights, massages, and mineral baths.

He consulted a number of other physicians and therapists in a vain effort to revitalize his muscles, but no success came. (http://www. disabled-world. com/artman/publish/famous-polio. shtml). However, FDR was successful in “walking” in front of Congress, as well as, the entire world in producing one of his most famous speeches. The last form of a physical disability a human can encounter is chronic illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, or even Club Feet like what the famous founder of the Radical Republicans Thaddeus Stevens got hold of.

Stevens suffered many hardships in his childhood including club feet, a birth defect in which the foot is twisted in and down, and without treatment, afflicts a person to walk on their ankles. (http://www. disabled-world. com/artman/publish/famous-clubfoot. shtml). Another popular disease, that successful presidents like John F. Kennedy, Woodrow, and Teddy Roosevelt suffered from, was asthma, which is a chronic condition involving the respiratory system in which the airway occasionally constricts, becomes inflamed (http://www. isabled-world. com/artman/publish/asthma-famous. shtml). Yet, this didn’t prevent any of these admirable men from completing the challenging duty of serving as the President of the United States. The other 2 categories of disabilities are mental and developmental disabilities. These classes of disabilities do not contain as many, or varying diseases as the physical category, but possesses unique effects and information for scientists to use in discovering a remedy in the challenging world of medicine.

Mental disabilities like Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety disorder, memory loss, phobias, and hell even schizophrenia offer more mysterious and unexplainable effects to a human than most physical diseases do like possessing memory loss, or obsessive behavior, or even specific fears to things like snakes or heights. Though most Americans most likely know those diseases, what these Americans probably don’t know is that one of the greatest presidents in American history, Abraham Lincoln, suffered from a mood/bipolar disorder, which is a condition where the prevailing emotional mood is distorted or inappropriate. Depression/unipolar depression and ipolar disorder are two major types of mood disorder. According to many historians, the Emancipation Proclamation creator suffered from depression. (http://www. disabled-world. com/artman/publish/mooddisorders-famous. shtml) But, this did not stop Lincoln from aiding to free slaves in the South and even playing a major role in uniting the Union and the Confederacy during and after the Civil War. If possessing multiple abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality like a Schizophrenic or containing constant anxiety that stresses a person to an overwhelming rate like a person with an anxiety disorder (http://www. uzzle. com/articles/) was not mind-bottling enough, people should observe the developmental disabilities. Most developmental disabilities are complex learning disabilities like ADD/ADHD, down syndrome, or autism that almost all of these victims are born with due to unfortunate genetics. For instance, asperser syndrome, which has symptoms like being reluctance to listen or difficulty understanding social situations, etc, is another learning disability that is caused mainly by genetics.

Therefore, many legendary American presidents or congressmen like Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were diagnosed with Asperser’s. Even famous American inventors like Alex Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, Henry Ford, who created Ford cars, and Thomas Edison had Asperser syndrome. Additionally, Thomas Edison, as well as, Woodrow Wilson possessed dyslexia, which is a specific learning disability that manifests primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling (http://www. isabled-world. com/artman/publish/article_2130. shtml#ixzz1jOL7TeXN ). Many Americans, at some point in their life, can dream of being the president of the United States. Or many American can imagine inventing an item almost as useful as a time machine, or even impact America so immensely that their name will forever be echoed in history. But, almost all of American didn’t dream of accomplishing these great deeds in a wheelchair, or with vision and/or hearing impairments, or even with a severe learning disability.

Yet, many historical Americans ranging from Abraham Lincoln and FDR to Thomas Edison and Helen Keller maybe dreamed or didn’t dream of making such impacts on our country. Nevertheless, these legends achieved all these tasks with disabilities under their belt. Perhaps disabled Americans won’t achieve such monumental tasks, or have their name repeated in the history books. Perhaps disabled Americans will never live what some people consider “a normal life”. But, maybe there are more Americans with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities than most people presume.

Maybe since there were so many disabled Americans that accomplished so much throughout history, as well as, in our country today that disabled people could be considered. Or perhaps most disabled Americans won’t live an ordinary life. These Americans could live an extraordinary life.

Works Cited

1. "Disabilities Define Disabilities at Dictionary. com. " Dictionary. com
2. Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary. com. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. . "Frequently Asked Questions
3. Autism Speaks. " Autism Speaks . Web. 14 Jan. 2012. . "Arthritis
4. Buzzle. com. " Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 4 Jan. 2012. . "List of Disabilities and Disability Facts
5. Buzzle. com. " Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
6. "Famous Blind and Vision Impaired Persons. " Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. .
7. "Famous Well Known People with Hearing Impairments and Deafness. " Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
8. "Famous People Who Had and Have Polio. " Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.
9. "Famous People with Club Feet or Foot. " Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. . "Famous People with Asthma. "
10. Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. . "
11. Famous People with Mood Disorders. " Disabled World. Web. 14 Jan.

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