Invisible disabilities in the workplaces

Load video

YouTube

YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy

ContinueDismiss

The first part got my attention because he said that, as a child, he never considered his autoimmune diseases to be a handicap. Why? I can only think about his upbringing. Because in my research about narcissism I've noticed how some people thrive while others play the victim. It really depends on how you perceive the world and yourself. That's not some path which was predetermined by biology. Social and environmental factors play a huge role into shaping people's behaviors and minds. It's my belief that there isn't a single cause: "let's blame this gene, let's blame parents, let's blame school". No!!! Can we stop blaming in the first place? As a matter of my knowledge about narcissism, excessive blaming all things that aren't yourself is one big issue about self-absorbed / self-centered people in general. As much as excessive self-blaming is also a sign of some serious mental challenges.

I think that the core of his message is that we should avoid labelling people and relying on stereotypes. Misunderstanding and misconceptions are what cause misdiagnosis for instance. When we have too many misconceptions, too much misunderstanding. That's when we let prejudice cloud our views and in extreme cases, give birth to racism, xenophobia and wars. To give a practical example of bias and misconceptions. We tend to make the association between a visible disability and what the person cannot do beforehand. What about invisible disabilities? There is the problem! If we cannot see it, we tend to think that the low performance or the low quality is deliberate or at least explained by a lack of effort. This is precisely what happens to one extremely common mental health disorder called depression. Depression is not controlled by free will. Disabilities aren't a choice.

Learning about narcissism made me realize that I had one bias, a prejudice of sorts. Good and bad people are not defined by disorders, physical disabilities or diseases. We tend to have a shallow view and judge based on stereotypes, such that we expect disabilities to mean low quality or low performance. Or to pity people based on disabilities. That's the point in Jason Reid's video. What if the disability is invisible? Then we, biased by this strong association between something visible and how the person performs, create false assumptions about that person. In this case, no visible disability would mean that the person must have low performance because they are lazy, careless, short-tempered, etc. We also are very much biased to make associations between good character and bad character and disorders. With NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) this is a very common misconception. Is every blind person a nice person who would never steal or lie? Not quite. Some types of criminals take advantage of bias to get by while avoiding being caught.

At school I wrote essays about how people with disabilities and athletes share the same trait of overcoming barriers in life. Now, decades later, I have a very different view on the same matter. I used to believe that a person missing a leg or an arm would never be a criminal and that most violent crimes are perpetrated by evil people and evil people must have some mental condition. This is precisely the same bias that causes people to suspect that black people are more likely to steal than white people. Dr. Guido Palomba is a famous brazillian forensic psychiatrist who advocates against this common sense that crimes and mental disorders are the cause or the consequence of the other. While extreme and bizarre crimes are linked to mental health, those are the exceptions to the rule.

I personally disagree about calling a disability a superpower. But that's a whole different debate that I'm not going to include here. My stance here is that a disability is a disability and whether the person with a disability is going to be good or bad at something, it heavily depends on mental health. Because all mental health disorders make the person miss opportunities, jobs or relationships in some form or another. I think that what Jason Reid is very much supportive of is that very often it's the environment that plays a huge role in people's performance in workplaces. In other words, very often small changes in the environment can deeply and positively affect how people work and perform. I'd synthetize Jason's video in this question: are we demanding people to cope with or can the environment be adapted to the people's needs?

Lastly, how to undo biases? I don't know. What I do know is that biases arise from environmental factors and this includes TV, newspapers, the media, the social media, schools, your surrounding neighborhood and families. I'd say that attempting to change the environment all by yourself is out of question. Look inside yourself first. Do question your beliefs if you can. More often than not, we do have beliefs that we aren't even aware of and the first step is to recognize them. Make the effort to see things from another perspective which is not your own. To quote Michael Jackson's song "If they wanna make the world a better place Take a look at yourself and then make a change".

Fun fact: How did I found this guy? I was looking for somebody else with same name (Jason Reid) because I was trying to find another video of an important topic which is the prevention of suicide of kids. This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW7Cx3iYYLk

Another fun fact: I am good at writing like Jason Reid (the canadian one). But I've never thought about journalism or literature. Again, social and environmental factors. My path is completely different from his.