Do you have any disabled friends?

[Shironeko]

Do you mean disabled as in "physically" or "mentally"?
Physically the closest I can say is my cousin has asthma pretty badly.
Mentally, no but I seriously think that sometimes with my friends (all aboard the stupid ideas train)

and as OtakuNinja said, welcome. We hope you like your stay. Enjoy the buffet.

Thanks for the welcome, from you and everyone else that answered. I was mostly thinking physical, but mental disorders count too, since Katawa Shoujo dealt with that as well.

I technically I have ADHD myself and my therapist used to think I had social anxiety(though if I did, I got over it). Not sure if those count as disabilities or not, but as far as mental disabilities go that's the closest I personally know.

[Xanatos]

Knew a girl years ago whose legs couldn't work so well. No idea why. Never asked. She used a walker.

Got palsy myself but it's not a big deal. The autism is worse.

[WhySoNatsu]

I'm not sure if this counts but I do have a friend that has a nasty problem with his legs. He doesn't go to a school for disabled students or anything but due to his leg problems he can't walk or run properly and he can't play sports like soccer or anything that involves using your legs too much.

Playing KS made me respect him a bit more cause he never whines or complains about his legs and he lives life to its fullest despite his injury.

[Kutagh]

I've seen several books and websites on the subject —one of my teachers thought it would be hilarious to have the guy with AS do a research paper on AS— but they unfortunately seem to assume or imply that it can be "fixed". I wouldn't call it an ailment; it's a different mindset that you have to learn to live with.

On-topic, no, I think that the only two "disabled" people in this town are this girl in a wheelchair and a girl missing half of one of her arms, and I don't know either of them.

@bolded: yeah it is really something from the unaffected people, considering the affected as... Not people? Needing to be fixed in order to be people? They don't get it that you just shoulder it and soldier on. We accepted our impairments, made them part of our character. So by trying to 'fix' us, you imply that this part of our personality is worthless.
That is why you shouldn't talk about fixing or curing deafness without being conscious of your wording and intentions, because the deaf community doesn't want that implication that the deaf character and culture is worthless.

[YZQ]

Not everyone can accept that state of affairs, and I think scientists have a selfish reason for promoting this particular line: They want to push their knowledge/mastery of the human body to the limit. Reversing deafness/blindness, creating artifical limbs that are as good as natural ones (if not better) all sound to me like projects mad scientists do. But, I'll bet my last dollar and hat that the fame at the end of it all will be enormous.

[Ilithandie]

My brother is Autistic, Schizophrenic, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, ADD, ADHD, Anxiety, umm that is all I can remember off the top of my head.
Unfortunate my mother and I have different opinions on what he is capable of.

[Xanatos]

...Oppositional Defiance Disorder...

Since when did being an insubordinate asshole become a disorder? To think I could've been claiming another disability all this time...

@YZQ: The augmentation of humanity and end of perceived disability is the ultimate goal of such people. Mad or not, it's what they aim to accomplish. And why not? It's the ultimate in self-preservation, making us so advanced that we don't even need to bother with preservation in the first place. They don't just want to push the limits, they want to eliminate the limits and it's only a matter of time until it becomes a feasible option. I give it a matter of decades based on the progress of technology I've seen in my life already. It's nightmarish in a way.

[Ilithandie]

He actually cannot help but becoming defiant if confronted directly. It normally grows into some thing that I cannot remember but it is bad you know the teens that around killing cats and stuff till they move on to people. Yeah it didn't grow into that for him.

[YZQ]

@Xan: Whoa. I'm cool with the idea, although I think folks like Kutagh are not as cool. Was a science student until I did Economics in university.

[Xanatos]

He actually cannot help but becoming defiant if confronted directly. It normally grows into some thing that I cannot remember but it is bad you know the teens that around killing cats and stuff till they move on to people. Yeah it didn't grow into that for him.

Anything that is an act of will can be helped with enough aid and effort. Defiance and obedience are both acts of will.

The term for that though, the cat butchery, is zoosadism. Or maybe "sociopath". Sociopaths tend toward zoosadism. I've studied quite a few killers though and, while many do start out mutilating the neighborhood cats, they never struck me as terribly compelled toward defiance. Upstanding lot when they weren't knifing their guests and stuffing them into the crawlspace beneath the house...Could've been great actors.

Just tell any authority figures he talks to that it's opposite day and they should only ever command him to do the polar opposite of what he's supposed to do. What's the opposite of "wash the dishes"?

@YZQ: As long as it stays optional, I say let science and technology march right the fuck on.

[Oddball]

While I've somewhat lost track of them over the years, I've had quite a few disabled friends.

One of my friends had been in a wheelchair all hr life. She never told me exactly what was wrong and I never asked. All I know is that her legs never worked.

Another friend had a total of five fingers if you count both hands and two prosthetic legs due to a lawnmower accident as a child.

I've dated a girl with burn scars covering the majority of her body.

Also my dad lost his leg when he was in his 20s.

[Steinherz]

While I've somewhat lost track of them over the years, I've had quite a few disabled friends.

One of my friends had been in a wheelchair all hr life. She never told me exactly what was wrong and I never asked. All I know is that her legs never worked.

Another friend had a total of five fingers if you count both hands and two prosthetic legs due to a lawnmower accident as a child.

I've dated a girl with burn scars covering the majority of her body.

Also my dad lost his leg when he was in his 20s.

*nods*
all I have to say to that is "fuck lawnmowers". My friend's dad nearly lost his hand due to one going nutty on him.
So you dated Hanako?
If I may ask, how'd your dad lose his leg? And which leg?

[Oddball]

So you dated Hanako?

She wasn't very much like Hanako, although she have a bitter streak to her and avoided wearing shorts or short sleeves whenever possible.

If I may ask, how'd your dad lose his leg? And which leg?

Right leg.

He was a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam war. His helicopter got shot, the impact tossed him out the side and when he hit ground he landed on a land mine. When i tell people that, most people tend to react something along the lines of "how unlucky can a guy get?" but he was actually the ONLY person from his platoon that made it.

[Steinherz]

If I may ask, how'd your dad lose his leg? And which leg?

Right leg.

He was a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam war. His helicopter got shot, the impact tossed him out the side and when he hit ground he landed on a land mine. When i tell people that, most people tend to react something along the lines of "how unlucky can a guy get?" but he was actually the ONLY person from his platoon that made it.

I wouldn't say he was unlucky, I would say whatever powers that be did not like him that day. He's alive, so that's lucky. And the only survivor? All I can say to that: lucky as hell.
Unlucky in the fact that he got thrown from a helicopter onto a land mine (that is one of those "well this went from bad to worse" moments), but lucky that he survived.

[Warwise]

One of my cousins is deaf due to her mother having rublla when she was pregnant, so she was born deaf and blind of one eye. Went to special school. I learned a bit of hand language because of her.

Met some people with eye problems like very bad eyesight and some were even blind in one eye due to trauma or some eye disease. One of my teachers had melanoma in one of his eye and had to enucleate it. Unfortunaly he died due to metastasis.

Maybe there are more, but I just dont care about this kind of thing and treat them like they are normal.