Disability and tech: stereotypes?

I’ve been puzzling over something, and I’m not sure whether I’m annoyed or not. I’m having problems getting the right words out of my mouth, so the best way I can say it right now is that I hate it when people try to make my stereotypes for me.

I do fit several, particularly of the cognitive variety. For example, I don’t drive, not even a modified car. It has nothing to do with my physical disability and everything to do with the sensory one: I simply can’t take in the onslaught of information that comes at me and still make my arm and leg react quickly enough. What are stereotypes to an outsider are simply traits to me. I’m comfortable with these, because they’re me. What bothers me are the manufactured ones, the ones that people think they have to save me from fitting, or that I’m in danger of being pushed into by other people.

I do sporadic volunteering. Some of it has to do with technology, because as long as my tools are compatible and I have permission to install them, I can navigate it pretty well — better, in some ways, than my colleagues who don’t go further than clicking on an icon with the mouse. I can get into the computer a bit more, because learning how to do that was a necessity — for keyboard shortcuts, setting up macros, and all that, not to mention learning how to troubleshoot my home computer because I couldn’t afford to part with the only computer I could fully use. These skills also come in handy on public computers, where the accessibility options are often locked down. (Head, meet desk. But I digress.) And besides, programming fascinates me, even though my C++ study is hard going. I LIKE computers.

But another thing I enjoy is storytelling. A friend I volunteer with elsewhere asked me to assist, knowing that, but in the process seemed to imply that it would be for my own good for this reason: “I think when people [employers] get someone with a disability, they just stick them behind a computer.” Meaning, I suppose, that the request was a way of saving me from being hidden behind the evil computer, à la the shamed relative being stuffed in the attic.  Now, I have no idea if the stereotype is true. People assume that everyone in my generation has familiarity with computers, but I came late to it. So I really couldn’t be pushed into it, but came to it on my own. I don’t know if other people have been pushed into it, though. If so, yes, that sucks.

I just can’t understand why Friend said it in relation to me. Friend knows I troubleshoot people’s computers if I can. And really, I wouldn’t mind being “stuck” behind a computer. I mean, hello, I can’t lift things much, and even lifting small things wears me out some days. Ergo, which part of the job is going to be more liberating for me? Take a wild guess.

I think what I resent more is that now when I do my storytelling, it’s not going to feel like something I enjoy. It’s going to feel like some awkward form of charity that I didn’t even want. Storytelling, where I could always put my vocal expression and word-personhood to good use without worry, has always been natural to me, even if I’m not as physically animated as other people. Even though I’ll never be a professional or anything, I always enjoy it. It irks me to think that now it’s half going to feel like I’m doing a favor, by getting out of some “shell” that was never there in the first place. (And it doesn’t help that my evil computer — or Dragon NaturallySpeaking more precisely — has helped me immensely in practicing my diction and technique. Go figure.)