Home » Health & Wellness » Brain Injuries » Society's Outcast

Society's Outcast

© Shannon Lester

Believe it or not, we are our own worst enemy. We preach to society that we can all feel secure in thinking that we are equal. There’s a common misconception, though. It doesn't include everyone.

We only kid ourselves. We walk along city streets, and give little thought to the passing wheelchair and chuckle at the thought of implementing every law to offer everyone equal opportunity. There are too many times that I have seen this scenario. Take a young girl currently disabled by a car accident. Now that she is confined to a wheelchair, she is trying to build a new life. The friends who stayed by her side at the scene of the accident have now disappeared. She winces at cold stares as she wheels herself through a crowded shopping mall. She is now alone in a place where people have only one thing on their minds... themselves.

She has the same potential as any other individual who comes in for a job interview, but her resume is tossed aside and forgotten. Employers fear being held accountable for any physical injury she may experience on the job. They dread the notion that she may not be as efficient or as timely on the job as an able-bodied individual. Hence, she is forced to take legal action.

Each day on the job, however, is another struggle. Brain injured employees have to deal with reprisals. Not only are denied accommodations they are entitled to, but they are given a hard time by company employees.

Is this really the land of opportunity?

When a celebrity’s relative is killed or dies tragically, the public comes together to help the victim’s family deal with their misfortune. But once someone becomes disabled, they are tossed aside by society as the outcast.

Take me, for example. At the tender age of nine, I suffered a rare brain injury. People never looked at me the same. In their eyes, I was a different person. My family tried to get me involved in activities with other people who understood, but it was out of their hands. So much had happened, and so little could be done. I had questions, but no answers.

In the movies, the disabled are labeled bizarre and are portrayed as the ones who don’t belong in the social scene. They are portrayed as selfish people who get the good parking spaces. That’s a small sacrifice to make for the anguish and pain they endure from the evils of this modern world.